Total Drama Redemption
by PurpleBandit3000
Summary: It was all he wanted ever since he was booted off third: A second chance. Noah's back on the island, How will he fare the second time around?
1. Flash Forward

Total Drama © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

* * *

_**Total Drama Redemption**_

**The Future**

I sat at my computer, entering some information into it.

Title: "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie"

Author: Numeroff, Laura

Genre: Kids

"_I remember reading this when I was a kid. Never knew at the time how well it would describe the greediness of people in the real world." _I thought to myself.

Just then, a teenager came up to my desk.

"Do you know where I can find a book named 'Twilight'? It's written by Stephenie Meyer." She asked me in a bubbly voice.

"_Yeah I know where you can find it. In Hell. Why don't you read an actual book such as 'Harry Potter' or 'Lord of the Rings' or 'Game of Thrones', books written by people who actually know how to write?" _I wanted to say.

"Yes, I know where it is. Follow me." Is what I actually said.

While I was wandering the halls in the library trying to locate that abomination of a book, the girl started talking to me more, something that I really didn't like. I work at the library because it's peaceful and quiet. _Not _to talk to people.

"You look kind of familiar. I think I've seen you before." The girl said.

"No you haven't" I quickly said.

"Yes I have. You were on that show... what was it called? Hmmm? Oh yeah! Total Drama Island, now weren't you?" The girl said. Then she continued. "What was your name, oh yeah, Noah, wasn't it? Didn't you kiss a guy on that show? You were also booted off first on your team, weren't you?" She asked inquisitively.

"You have it all wrong. I'm not Noah; I'm uhhhh Neal, his uhhhh twin brother, yeah! I'm his twin brother Neal." I replied "_That's my story and I'm sticking to it." _I thought.

"Oh. Sorry for the misunderstanding. You two look so much alike. Do you, by any chance know where Noah is?" She asked.

"_Why, so you can go bug him about it?" _I thought"No, we don't really keep in touch that much." I said, fakingly apologetic.

"Oh well. Well here's the book I wanted. Thanks for the help." She said.

"Yeah, whatever." I said. "_Please burn that book and then flush the ashes down a toilet." _Is what I should have said.

Nothing else that was interesting happened at the library. "_Ahhhhhhh the library. A bookworm's paradise." _I thought to myself.

My shift had ended, and it was time for me to head home.I was exhausted from all the typing that I had to do, but the job pays well enough, and it's mostly quiet.

Just then, I got a message on my phone.

Geoff: Hey man! Just wanted to let you know that I'm throwing a party tonight, and I wanted to know if you would be there.

_Sorry Geoff but I am as tired as Duncan after "The Big Sleep", _I texted him back.

I'm not really the party type anyway. I was tired, and I was thinking about what that girl had said back at the library. I wanted recognition after being on Total Drama Island, but not in this way. At one point, I had even considered a facial transplant.

It all started from the moment I went back to high school. Even the nerds made fun of me. If not for me kissing another guy, then for me losing first on my team, finishing 20th overall. It carried on for all of my four years in college. Man, was I glad to get out of that dump.

I had the wild notion that adults were mature and wouldn't poke fun at me for such things, but, wow, was I wrong. I'm not really an emotional guy and I can take a few jokes, but the stuff I was receiving was too much. It all just made me more of a cynic.

"_One would think that being on one of the, if not the most popular show in all of Canada, would make people like you at least a little bit more, but apparently I'm wrong."_

I was _way _out of league with that statement.

I tried to sleep, but it didn't come. I just kept thinking about all the stuff that had happened since I left that show. Most of them were bad. _Too _bad. I decided to go watch some TV to take my mind off of things.

I flipped on the television. Something with the initials C.F.L. was on.

"_What's it stand for?" _I wondered.

On TV, an announcer spoke. "Hello and welcome back to this game of the Canadian Football League."

I watched the sport for about a minute, which was one minute longer than I should have.

I'll never understand football. A bunch of sweaty fat dudes running around with an egg shaped ball in their hands or throwing it to other people, only for that person to get demolished by another fat person.

_Who in their right minds would watch such atrocity?_

Not to mention that the sport is called _foot_ball, even though they barely use their feet. I do not see why Tyler enjoys watching this so much, but then again, he doesn't know why I enjoy reading so much.

Jocks and bookworms are just too different to understand each other.

Thinking about Tyler brought me back to all the things that happened after the show.

_You dumbass, you turned on the TV to forget about those things, not to remember them._

"Yes, brain, I know!" I shouted. I like my brain. It just gets on my nerves sometimes.

Oh dear. Am I actually talking to my own brain? I feel like I'm Izzy or something.

_Crap, I did it again. Why did everything always had to go back to Total Drama Island?_

I changed the channel on the TV. It was now showing a horror flick.

"It's like that challenge when Chef dressed up as a killer and then terrorized the campers" I muttered. Aw shizz, I did it again.

I kept flipping channels, but on every one of them was something that; in some way, shape, or form reminded me of TDI.

This obviously wasn't helping, so I decided to turn on my laptop and maybe watch some funny cat videos to cheer me up. Bad idea. My background image was the 22 of us posing for the camera on the Dock of Shame. I slammed my laptop in frustration.

Not all of the experiences that I had on Total Drama Island were bad. It was just that I wished some of the bad experiences would go away. It _had _been eight frickin' years since I got eliminated.

I wish I could erase them. I wish people would forget about them. I want another chance. Just one more chance to change everything. It's all I want, please. I don't know who I was talking to since I was an agnostic and so far no evidence had pointed to God's existence. No _actual _evidence anyway.

_Noah, quit blabbering and go to sleep you dilweed._

"F off brain." I muttered, before I began to drift off to sleep…

* * *

Apologies to any American football fans. Unlike Noah, I like, no, _love _American Football. (Maybe I should consider marrying it?)

Also, about Twilight, I am really sorry about WAIT WHAT!? That book actually is crap! Seriously, did Stephenie Meyer slam her head on the keyboard and published that garbage? Maybe she was high...


	2. Back From Whence He Came

Total Drama © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

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_**Total Drama Redemption**_

**The Future, Part 2**

I woke up the next morning at 7:00 AM, like I always do. I felt like I had a lot more energy.

"Must have slept really well." I muttered.

I looked at myself in the mirror. To make sure I hadn't been turned into an alien overnight. I looked a lot younger.

_I guess good sleep can change your complexion._

As usual, I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth.

"I really do look young." I said while I saw my reflection on the bathroom mirror. Either that or I'm imagining things.

After brushing my teeth, I hopped into the shower and then changed into a fresh set of clothes.

I then poured some milk and Rice Krispies in a bowl and started eating the cereal.

Just then, I heard the doorbell ring. I went to open it and saw a man sitting in a car. Not just any car, it was a flippin' Cadillac. The man also looked very good. He was wearing a black suit with a red tie, and black pants. He slo had black shiny shoes and a silver wristwatch.

"What are you waiting for? Get in!" He yelled.

I stood there for a while before realizing that he was talking to me.

"Where are we going?" I asked him.

"Haha. You're a funny guy, dude. Now stop joking and get in." He replied.

"Okay. Just hold on a minute." I said.

I went back into my house confused. Where was I going? Did the library schedule a meeting without my knowledge? Whatever it was, I rushed to my emergency travel bag.

In anticipation of an event such as this occurring, I had packed away a set of toiletries, clothes and some miscellaneous items into a duffel bag. I quickly grabbed it, put on my socks, laced my shoes and ran outside and into the car.

"Shall we go?" The driver asked.

I checked to make sure that I hadn't forgotten anything, and then nodded my head in confirmation.

I was still wondering about where we were going, when we reached a shipyard. I was getting a feeling of deja vu as the place seemed rather familiar.

"Have I been here before?" I asked the driver.

"How would I know?" He replied, only then did I realize how stupid my question sounded.

"Your boat's here. It's time for you to go." He told me, pointing at a boat that was arriving.

_Why do I have to go on a boat?_

I went on the boat and noticed that there was no one else on board except the captain. He started driving. To a very familiar place…

I rubbed my eyes. Was I dreaming? I pinched myself. I had arrived at the place where it all started.

"Here we go again." I muttered to myself.

I stepped onto the dock, and had entered Total Drama Island.

* * *

Sorry for the short(er) chapter. And by 'short', I mean smaller than a midget with his legs cut off. I wanted to end it when Noah arrives at the island.


	3. The Beginning All Over Again

Total Drama Island © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

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_**Total Drama Redemption**_

**Day One (01)**

While walking onto the dock, I noticed that a lot of the campers had already arrived. Beth, DJ, Gwen, Geoff, Lindsay, Heather, Duncan, Tyler, Harold and Trent, to be exact.

"You got my memo about my life threatening allergies?" I asked Chris, exactly as I did the first time around.

"I'm sure someone did!" He replied cheerfully.

"Good. Is this where we're staying?" I asked him. Obviously, it was. I just wanted to say the exact same things that I said the first time around.

"No. It's your mother's house, and we're throwing a party." Duncan said, cracking his knuckles as he replied to me sarcastically. I'm supposed to be the wiseass!

"Nice piercings original. Do them yourself?" I retorted, with the same amount of cynicism.

"Yeah, you want one?" He asked, pulling my lip with one hand and holding a sharp needle in the other.

"No thanks. Can I have my lip back please?" I asked him dryly. He then released it, and I let out a droll "Thaaanks."

Amidst the fun that Duncan and I were having, another boat was arriving. It was Leshawna's. She stepped on the dock, giving Chris and DJ high-fives and yelling some stuff about how we should quit right now because she was going to win.

Harold then piped up "I've never seen a woman like you in real life before. You're real big. And loud." Not something that you should say to a woman.

Leshawna was furious she was about to fight Harold, who was, in turn, making some karate poses. It was a good thing that Bridgette and DJ were able to hold Leshawna back, because I doubt Harold would stand a chance against her.

"Alright campers, settle down." Chris said, a little ticked off. He then welcomed the next two contestants.

Katie and Sadie, the only contestants who knew each other before this crazy show even started. The two said some stuff (had I repeated their conversation, it would cause me to lose some brain cells) squeaked out that annoying "eeeeee!" and then ran towards the rest of the campers.

The next to arrive was Ezekiel. Chris asked him what's up.

"I think I see a bird." Was his reply. Trent snickered, and Chris explained to us that Ezekiel was homeschooled.

"Just don't say much and try not to get kicked off too early." Chris said. If only Zeke had actually taken that advice.

"That's just, wow." Gwen commented as Ezekiel headed towards us.

Cody was the next on to arrive. Chris announced him as the Codemeister and they exchanged a high-five.

Cody immediately put on his façade. "Dudes. Psyched to be here man. I see the ladies have already arrived. Alright." He said. It was utterly and completely obvious that he was pretending.

He then opened his mouth to say something else, but Leshawna quickly shut him up.

I think the dock actually shook with the next arrival. Eva ignored Chris and dropped her bag on Cody's foot.

"What's in there? Dumbbells?" Cody said, hopping in pain.

"Yes" Eva replied nonchalantly, to which Duncan mentioned to DJ that she was "all yours man"

"Woohoo!" was the sound that came from the end of the dock, shaking me out of my deep thought. The yeller was Owen, who then went on about how awesome it was that he was there, holding Chris in a bear hug in the process.

Owen asked Gwen if she would be on his team. "I sure hope so." Gwen replied, while making a 'cuckoo' motion with her finger.

The next one to arrive was Courtney. "You must be the other contestants. Nice to meet you all." She said to us. Trust me Courtney, by the end of this show, you will be wondering why you ever said that.

Owen was shaking Courtney's hand when the next boat arrived. Justin. Anti-me had arrived at the dock for the first time, causing all the girls (and Owen) to swoon.

Once on the dock, Owen complimented Justin's pants, adding that "they look like they're all worn out." He then asked Justin if he bought his pants in worn out condition.

_Shut up Owen. You're making a fool of yourself._

Owen then slapped his head, acknowledging that he was stupid.

Izzy then arrived on the dock. Or should I say, she slammed her head on the dock and sank.

"Oooooo. That was bad." Tyler said. He then chuckled.

This coming from someone who crashed into a pile of suitcases on _his _entrance.

Courtney ran over to the dock and pulled Izzy out of the water.

Izzy shook off the water from her hair, and then began asking a flurry of questions that I, and most of the other campers, had trouble keeping up with. All I know is that her last question was "Are we having lunch soon?" which Owen said was a "Good call"

"First things first." Chris said. "We need a group photo for the promos. Everyone on the end of the dock!" He instructed us.

Aw man. I knew how this was going to end, but what could I do? I posed under Owen's arm as Trent leaned on me. I flashed a cheesy smile as Chris, who was on the boat, prepared to take a picture.

He was first halted because the lens cap was on, and then because the memory card was full. He did both of those things on purpose.

"Everyone say Wawanakwa!" He said cheerfully.

We obeyed, and then the dock collapsed leaving us all wet.

"Okay guys. Dry off and meet at the campfire pit in ten." Chris said.

"What a sadist." I muttered under my breath as I wrung the excess water from my shirt and shorts.

It was then that I realized that I even wore the same shirt and shorts as the first time around. Short blue sleeves that overlapped long white ones, a blue collar and a red middle, and baggy green shorts.

All of the campers could pretty much be described in a couple of words:

Beth: The Farm Girl

DJ: The Gentle Giant

Gwen: The Sensible Goth

Geoff: The Party Animal

Lindsay: The Brainless Beauty

Heather: The Manipulative Bi-… I mean, Strategist

Duncan: The Delinquent Rebel

Tyler: The Clumsy Jock

Harold: The Talented Nerd

Trent: The Friendly Musician

Bridgette: The Vegetarian Surfer

Leshawna: The Sassy Loudmouth

Sadie: The Annoying BFFF

Katie: The Annoying-er BFFF

Ezekiel: The Homeschooled Nitwit

Cody: The Geeky Ladies Man Wannabe

Eva: The Temperamental Fitness Buff

Owen: The Cheerful Fatso

Courtney: The High-Strung CIT

Justin: The Handsome Model

Izzy: The Insanely Crazy Nutcase

And, of course, there was Noah: The Cynical Bookworm

I noticed that most of the other people were heading off to the campfire pit, so I followed. I sat down on a stump next to Harold as Chris began explaining the rules of the competition, which I already knew. The bottom line was that if you're the only one to not get voted off, you win the money. He then mentioned that the cabins weren't co-ed

"Darn." Cody muttered.

There was some complaining going on and Gwen couldn't believe that this was happening.

I couldn't believe it either, but that was probably because just yesterday I was a grown man and now I was back in hell.

Chris then began to read off names for the first team: "Gwen, Trent, Heather, Cody, Lindsay, Beth, Katie, Owen, Leshawna, Justin, and…Noah."

Phew, for some reason, I thought I would be on a different team this time around.

"From this moment on, you are officially known as… the Screaming Gophers." Chris said, tossing us a green towel with a picture of something that was supposed to resemble a gopher on it.

Katie was then worried that Sadie was on the other team. I'd bet a hundred thousand dollars that Chris split them up on purpose.

The rest of the campers: Geoff, Bridgette, DJ, Tyler, Sadie, Izzy, Courtney, Ezekiel, Duncan, Eva, and Harold were on team two.

"But Katie's a Gopher. I have to be a Gopher." Sadie cried out as Courtney led her off.

Chris tossed them a red towel with a picture of a bass on it, because they were the Killer Bass.

Chris then explained that we would be monitored in all public areas, that we could share our private thoughts with the rest of the world through Confessionals, and then he led us toward the cabins.

"Gophers, you're in the east cabin, Bass, you're in the west." He exclaimed.

We all went into our cabins to put our stuff away. I watched as Cody went into the girls side, and then got shoved out into a moundful of dirt. While in the boys side, I heard a conversation from outside.

"Where are the outlets? I have to plug in my straightening iron." Lindsay asked.

"There are some in the communal bathrooms, just across the way." Chris answered.

"Communal bathrooms? But I'm not Catholic." Oh jeez, my insides hurt from laughing, even though I knew she was going to say that.

Chris explained that it was not communion, but _communal_. Gwen then told her that "It means we shower together. Idiot."

Lindsay started bawling as Trent, Owen and I came outside to see what the commotion was about.

"I'm glad we're in our own cabin with just guys. Know what I mean?" Owen asked us. I knew what he was _trying _to say, it was just coming out wrong.

"I mean no, I didn't mean it like that." Owen said, realizing his folly. "I loooove chicks. I just don't want to sleep near them-uh, I mean…" Owen said, running after us. He should really consider thinking twice before he speaks.

Chris then announced that we were all sixteen and could take care of ourselves.

_I seriously doubt that._

"You've got a half hour to unpack and meet me back at the main lodge, starting…now! He exclaimed, pointing to his watch.

We all then heard an ear-piercing scream coming from the girl's side.

It was Lindsay, who was scared of a cockroach. DJ dived into Gwen's bed, breaking it. There was a lot more screaming and commotion as the roach scurried around.

Then Duncan smashed it with an axe.

Tyler then flirted with Lindsay, as I went to my cabin to finish unpacking.

I began rummaging through my items to find out the stuff I needed, when I heard someone.

"Hey, um… Noah, right?" He asked.

"Yes, Cody. What do you want?" I asked him drolly.

"Nothing. Just wanted to know what you brought with you." He replied.

"See for yourself" I said.

He then went over to my bag and pulled out a book: _The Count of Monte Cristo_. "You're behind on your summer reading, aren't you?" He asked me.

"No, I just like to read." I told him.

"So what kind of books do you read? Do you read any comic books? Cause that's what I read, and I brought a ton of 'em here too." He informed me, pulling out some Marvel and DC.

"No, Cody, I'm not really into comic books. I prefer novels and plays." I told him.

"Oh." He said, disappointed.

Then Owen let out a loud fart. The stench was so bad that we had to clear out.

"You want some cloth clips?" Trent asked us we nodded.

"I brought these so I could hang my clothes out to dry in case they got wet" he said, handing us some "but I guess they double as a nose plug."

"So what do we do now?" Cody asked.

"I guess we go to the Cafeteria like Chris told us to." Trent suggested.

"Sure." I agreed, as we headed off.

We were then in a cafeteria line, ah, just like high school. I was fourth in line and Chef was bellowing out some stuff.

"Listen up! I serve it three times a day, and you will eat it three times a day! Grab your tray, get your food, and sit your butts down now!"

"Excuse me, will we be getting all the major food groups?" Beth asked.

_What do you think Beth?_

"Yeah, cause I get hypoglycemic real bad if I don't get enough sugar." Harold added.

I could see Chef's face turn into a scowl (if it already wasn't in a scowl).

"You'll get a whole lot of SHUT THE HECK UP!" He yelled at Harold's face, as the lanky nerd sped off.

"Have a cow." Owen joked.

"What was that!?" Chef screamed. "Come closer fat boy. I didn't hear you." Oh boy, was Owen in for it now.

"Um, I didn't really say anything important." Owen whimpered, grabbing his tray.

"I'm sure you didn't." Chef said.

"You, scrawny kid, give me your plate." Chef ordered me, grabbing another spoonful of brown mush.

I reluctantly agreed, and he poured another spoonful of the brown slop on my tray. It jumped right back to the ladle, and he poured it back. I looked at my food in disgust and headed over to the Gopher table.

I sat in between Gwen and Heather. Everyone at our table was looking sick.

"Welcome to the Main Lodge." A voice sounded. It was Chris's.

"Yo! My man! Can we order a pizza?" Geoff asked. Bad idea. He ducked to narrowly avoid getting hit by a hatchet. Haha, nice pun.

"Whoa! It's cool G! Brown slop is cool! Right guys?" Geoff said, trying to defend himself.

We all nodded, scared of what would happen in we didn't.

"You're next challenge begins tomorrow morning!" Chris said.

Wait what!? If I remember correctly, he's supposed to say that the next challenge begins in one hour!

"Now that you guys have seen the place, it's time for you guys to record your opening day Confessionals! Say what you think about the cabins, the other campers, the food! Anything that comes to mind." He said.

"The last one's easy." I whispered to Owen. He chuckled. I would have said it louder, but I was trying to avoid being mutilated by Chef.

"What do you think they'll make us do?" Katie asked DJ.

"It's our first challenge. How hard can it be?" No no no DJ! You must never say that. It's an unmentionable statement, because once you take things for granted, it always comes back to bite you in the butt.

"Listen up people! The confessions will be done alphabetically, so that means Beth, you're up first." Chris said.

The farm girl walked over to the confessional.

"Are you gonna eat that?" Owen asked me, motioning towards the food.

"No chance in hell." I said, sliding my tray towards him. He gobbled it down in one gulp, and let out a belch afterwards.

"How do you manage to eat that?" I asked him.

"All food is good food." He said nonchalantly.

"I highly disagree. Hey Cody, any idea what to say in that confessional?" I asked him.

"Oh, I know _exactly _what I'm gonna say." He told me, while looking at Gwen with loving eyes.

"Cody, You're up!" Chris yelled as Cody quickly got up and walked to confess.

"Europe?" Lindsay asked clueless. "I always wanted to go there. Are we going there right now?"

"He said _you are up, _not Europe." I told her.

_And besides, you can go to Europe in season three._

"_I'm _up?" She asked, then ran over to the confessional. The rest of us slapped our foreheads with our palms.

"I don't know how one can be so dumb, and manage to live for sixteen years." Gwen muttered.

It was a bit rude, albeit true.

"By being rich and attractive of course." Heather answered. "Unlike you." She muttered under her breath. Except Cody heard her. He was back from his confessional

"Hey! Don't be so rude." Cody said to her. The queen bee just brushed it off.

From that point, the table was silent. Katie was sad that Sadie was on the other team, Heather and Gwen were at odds, and Lindsay was flirting with Tyler. Owen tried to break the silence, but failed.

"Noah!" Chris called out. Wow, that went by fast. I walked over to the confessional. My first one on Total Drama Island. The first time around, confessionals weren't mandatory.

I opened the door, and was hit by the smell of perfume. Lindsay had used it before me! I tried to ignored it as I talked to the camera.

"So far, I have mixed emotions about this place. About the campgrounds, they're very spacious. The bunk beds seem pretty hard. I'll know for real when I try to sleep on one tonight. As far as the campers go, some of them are overly joyous, some are pretty sensible, and one in particular is really dumb. *cough* Lindsay *cough* Overall, the place is okay. Let's see how far I make it."

I stepped out of the confessional. Owen was waiting outside.

"You hear what I said?" I asked him.

"Oh, no. I don't listen in on conversations that aren't meant for me. Those are private thoughts Noah. I can't listen in on them." He told me.

"You didn't badmouth me, did you?" He asked me.

"Of course not Owen, now go in there and confess your heart out." I patted him and went back to the Cafeteria.

It was evening once all the confessions were over with. I was trying to figure out why Chris had postponed the challenge to tomorrow when it should have been today. He didn't_postpone _it per say, but he had still altered the date of the challenge. I decided not to think about it too much. For one, it wasn't like I actually _wanted _to do the challenge, so I decided to let it go.

Meanwhile, Lindsay and Beth were chatting about what confessions they both made.

"Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of a confessional?" I asked Cody, nudging him.

"Huh? Oh, yeah." He replied, somewhat startled.

I could tell we wasn't paying attention to me. He had been staring at Gwen the whole walk back.

We entered our cabins as we discussed the sleeping arrangements. I'm glad the sadist actually gave us two bunk beds.

"Obviously, Canadian Pride over here is on the bottom. I don't want a bed falling on me in the middle of the night." I said. "Is that okay with you three?"

Trent nodded, Owen agreed that it'd be for the best and Cody was nowhere to be found.

"So who sleeps on the top bunk?" Trent asked me.

"Well, Cody's not here, so I guess he'll sleep in Owen's bunk." I told him. He agreed.

"Also, can I have the bottom bunk please?" He asked me. It was fine with me. I wanted the top bunk.

"Sure." I replied, as he began emptying his stuff. He laid a guitar on his bed.

"You're a musician, I assume." I told him.

"Yeah. I've been playing ever since I was a kid. Music is my life." He said.

"And books are mine." I told him.

"Food is my life if anyone was wondering." Owen piped up.

"Well, the first challenge begins tomorrow. Better get some shut eye." Trent told us.

"Any idea what it could be?" Owen asked us.

_What do you think I am Owen, some time-traveller whose from the future?- oh, wait!_

"I have no idea." I told him. "And there's only one way to find out."

"Which is…?"

"Go to sleep and find out tomorrow."

"Oh, okay."

I could hear Owen softly snoring.

"He's kind of cute when he's sleeping." Trent told me.

_I don't think our definitions of the word 'cute' are the same._

"Well, good night." He said, dozing off.

I climbed up to my bunk, grabbed by novel, _The Count of Monte Cristo _and started to read. I was reading it for the third time, but it was a good book and this was the first time I had read it in a while.

I was interrupted after a few minutes when the door opened. It was Cody. "What were you doing?" I asked him.

"Trying to talk to the ladies." He answered, trying to sound smooth.

"And I'm guessing you got kicked out?" I asked.

"Yep. For the second time in one day." He told me as he sulked.

"I'm bored. You wanna do something?" He asked.

"Like what?" I asked back.

"Well, I did bring my chess board and pieces." He said.

"Why not?" His body perked back up, and he began to arrange the pieces.

"I must warn you, however, that I have been playing since I was six years old." I told him.

"So have I. I'll have you know that I haven't lost a game in three years." He said.

"But what if that's because you haven't played a game in three years?"

"Touché"

"I want to go easy on the beating, so I'll let you be white." I told him.

"We'll see whose taking the beating after this game is over." He replied, moving his pawn.

I also moved my pawn. He then moved his knight.

"So, are you wondering about the next challenge?" He asked me.

"Not really. Let's cross that bridge when we get to it."

We played like this for a long while. We were still playing at the point where I would have dispatched my other opponents at ease by now.

"I'm president of the chess club at my school." Cody told me.

"I would have been president, but the other members said that I was so good, I made them look awful by comparison." I told him. This wasn't true, of course. I was just too lazy to make an effort to be president.

The more we talked, the lesser the amount of pieces that were left on the board. We talked mostly about trivial matters, such as what our schools were like, what TV shows we watched, what games we played, about our neighborhood and family and where we lived, about the other competitors, why we joined Total Drama Island.

Cody was an only child, and he was really into technology and gaming. This was the opposite of me, who grew up with a lot of siblings and barely got any attention in the house due to being the youngest.

"Truth be told, I wanted to hang with the cool kids." He told me.

"And score a girlfriend while you're at it?" I asked him.

"Yeah, that too."

"Listen Cody, I really don't think you should try to act cool to impress Gwen. Just try being yourself."

"But no one liked me when I was myself. She'll surely hate me."

"Your choice Cody, just stating my humble opinion."

"Dude, I can't believe it!"

"What?"

"It ended in a frickin draw!"

It took me a while to realize that he was talking about our chess game. I had a king and a knight, while he had a king. A king and knight cannot checkmate a lone king, so the game was a draw.

"Anyone who draws with me is a worthy opponent in my book." I told him.

"Wanna go again?" He asked, picking up the pieces.

"Nah. I'm pretty tired."

"Oh, okay, good night." He said.

"Hey, why do I have to sleep on top of Owen's bed?"

"Because dibs." I answered. You know the rule. If a person is not there while a decision is being made that involves them, it is totally and definitely _their _fault.

"Meh, whatever," he said as he climbed to the top bunk.

"Say Cody,"

"What?"

"How about we make this a nightly ordeal?"

"Huh?"

"I liked chatting with you, I also like playing chess. It's my second favorite hobby, next to reading, of course. How about we play a game every night?"

"That would be awesome. I feel like I need someone to vent to, other than the Confession Cam, I mean."

"Okay, well, good night."

"I hope tomorrow's challenge is easy."

"Yeah, me too." I replied, even though I knew damn well that it would not be.

* * *

Oh man, that was long as heck. Hope you enjoyed it. Day 2, and the first challenge to come soon!


	4. Cliffhanger

Total Drama Island © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

* * *

_**Total Drama Redemption**_

**Day Two (02)**

I woke up, and my body felt stiff. The bunk bed was very difficult to sleep on, but I had somehow managed.

I checked the clock that I brought along. It was 9 AM. I started to panic, thinking that I'd be late for work, but then I realized that I was a teenager on a reality show.

I was the only person still in the cabin. I went outside and let out a yawn. Cody was sitting on the steps outside the Gopher cabin, playing with his Nintendo. Trent was sitting on a bench nearby, strumming his guitar.

"Either of you see Owen?" I asked them.

"He went to the Mess Hall to eat breakfast." Cody answered.

Just then, someone stumbled out of the girl's side of the cabin. It was Justin.

"What were you doing in there?" Cody asked.

Snap, I had forgotten all about Justin. He was just so quiet and calm that sometimes you forget about him (if you're a straight guy, that is).

"The girls forced me to sleep on their side of the cabin. Sadie even offered to sleep on the floor so I wouldn't get my 'well-toned' body ruined." Justin answered.

"You lucky dog." Cody said.

"You would think that, but the truth is that they wouldn't shut up. All through the night, all they did was talk, talk, talk.

And when they finally _did _stop talking, I couldn't sleep because the bed was so uncomfortable.

"Yeah, I was having some trouble with that too." Trent said.

Cody was still punching buttons on his DS.

"So, what game you playing?" I asked him.

"Space invaders. I'm on the thirtieth level." He told me.

"When did you start playing?" I asked.

"About three hours ago."

Dang. Three hours of punching buttons while looking into a screen? I don't think I could do that. Then I realized that my job involved doing just that, with five hours extra.

"Does it have enough battery?" Trent asked.

"Yeah, it has plenty of- oh crap!" Cody ran into the cabin to find his charger, while I grabbed my toiletries and headed to the bathroom.

I brushed my teeth and took a shower. The water was freezing cold. Flippin' camp water. I dried myself off, changed myself into a fresh set of clothes, (which looked the exact same as the ones that I was wearing before) and headed off to the Mess Hall.

Once I arrived, I saw Owen, gobbling down on Chef's food.

He went over to Chef and asked for more.

"We need to save some for the other campers fat boy."

"But I'm so hungry."

"If there are any leftovers, you can have them."

_Oh, there will be leftovers, alright._

Owen sighed, and then let out an "Okay."

Gwen, Beth, Ezekiel, Katie, Sadie, Leshawna and Duncan were also there. More and more campers started to arrive, and by 10 o'clock, it was a full house.

Katie and Sadie kept talking about how much they missed each other, Cody was still playing his Gameboy, Lindsay was applying some make up, and Justin was looking at himself in the mirror. Typical high-school cafeteria.

Then Chris walked in and all the side-action stopped.

"Hello campers. You know what today is."

"Tuesday?" Lindsay asked.

"No! Well, yes, but it is also the day of the first challenge ever on TOTAL… DRAMA… ISLAND!"

We all covered our years as he hollered the last part.

"Alright people, split into your two teams and follow me." He said, leaving the Mess Hall.

I shoved away my tray of half-eaten sludge and joined my team on the long walk up the cliff.

"What do you think he'll make us do, eh?" Ezekiel asked the rest of us.

"Who knows?" I replied, even though _I _obviously knew.

We were at the top, and I was still wondering why we were having this challenge _today,_ when Chris started explaining the rules.

"Okay. Today's challenge is threefold. You're first task is to jump off this one-thousand foot high cliff, into the lake."

"Piece of cake." Bridgette said.

The host continued "If you look down, you will see two target areas. The wider area represents the part of the lake that we have stocked with psychotic man-eating sharks."

"Oh joy." I muttered to Cody.

"Inside that area is a safe zone. That's your target area, which, we're pretty sure, is shark free."

People cringed when they heard the "we're pretty sure" part of that sentence.

"Excuse me?" Leshawna said.

"For each member of your team that jumps and actually survives, there will be a crate of supplies waiting below." I liked how he mentioned that we could die without even a hint of seriousness.

"Inside each crate are the supplies that you'll need for the second part of the challenge: building a hot tub. The team with the best one gets to have a wicked hot tub party tonight. The losers will be sending someone home. Let's see, Killer Bass, you're up first.

As Bridgette asked the _really _dumb question of who wanted to go first on the Killer Bass, Owen told us that these types of shows always test the challenges on interns first to make sure it's survivable, which was pretty believable, except for the fact that this wasn't your ordinary reality show.

Bridgette decided to jump first for the Killer Bass. She made it into the safe zone. Tyler was so pumped by this that he also jumped. He wasn't so lucky and hit the buoy. Ouch.

Geoff, Eva and Duncan all jumped. DJ was up next, but he didn't want to jump.

"Uh uh. No way man. I'm not jumping."

"Scared of heights?" Chris asked him.

"Ever since I was a kid." DJ told him.

"That's okay big guy. Unfortunately, that also makes you a chicken, so you'll have to wear this for the rest of the day." Chris said, placing a chicken hat on the gentle giant's head.

"Aw man, really?" DJ asked.

Chris then made some chicken noises while flapping his arms like a chicken would. Jerk. I seriously doubt that _he'd _jump.

"That means, the chicken path down is that a way." Chris said, motioning behind him.

DJ walked over to the escalator.

"How'd they install an escalator here?" Owen asked.

"It's magic, Owen." I told him.

"Phew. For a moment there, I thought they were all going to jump." Trent said.

Next up was Ezekiel, who hit the side of the cliff and spun into the safe zone. Down at the beach, the other Killer Bass cheered.

Harold then jumped and did the splits in mid-air, hitting the water unmentionables first.

He let out a yell as everyone else cringed. Man, Tyler's injury seemed like a small booboo compared to _this._

"Oh. Hate to see that happen." Chris said.

"Excuse me Chris, I have a medical condition." A certain CIT said.

"What condition?" Chris asked.

"A condition that prevents me from jumping off cliffs." I'm pretty sure that no such condition exists.

"You can chicken out if you want, but it might end up costing your team the win. And then they'll hate you." Chris said.

"It's a calculated risk. I've seen the other team and I don't think nine of them will jump."

Her overconfidence pissed me and the rest of my team off. Even worse was that she was counting on the rest of her team to jump.

"Alright. Here is your chicken hat." Chris said, placing it on her head.

"So, let's tally up the results- hold on, that's eight jumpers and two chickens. We're missing one."

_You mean that's SEVEN jumpers so you're missing TWO._

"I'm not jumping without Katie." Sadie said.

"We have to be on the same team Chris. Pleeease." Sadie's BFFFL begged.

They then continued to annoy the host with their request. I was considering switching places with them. I've already experienced Total Drama Island as a Screaming Gopher. But what was TDI like as a Killer Bass? It was like I missed out on half of the experiences.

"I'll switch places with her." Someone had said the words that I wanted to say. That _someone _was Izzy.

"Alright, fine! You're both on the Killer Bass now. Izzy, you're on the Screaming Gophers." Chris said reluctantly. He had planned to keep them on different team, but they had annoyed him to the point where he put them together.

The BFFFLs let out cheers. Izzy shrugged and headed over to our team.

"That means you're up girls." Chris said.

"Why does he keep mentioning Europe?" Lindsay asked. No one bothered to explain it to her. It was pointless to do so.

"We're coming Killer Bass." Katie and Sadie said in unison as they jumped off the cliff.

"Okay, so that's nine jumpers and two chickens." Chris said. "Screaming Gophers, if you can beat that, we'll throw in a pull-cart to put your crates on.

The first time around, I had been wondering what purpose the first part of this challenge was for. There's no advantage for jumping, because the team that builds the hot tub first wins, not the team with more jumpers. Chris changed that by adding a little incentive to the team that won the first half.

"Nice." Trent said. "Okay guys, who's up first?" Can you say 'bad question'?

"I'm sorry. There's no way I'm doing this." Heather said.

"Why not?" Beth asked.

"Hello, national TV! I'll get my hair wet."

I wanted to burst out laughing.

One, because that's one of the silliest excuses ever. Sharks? Thousand foot cliff? Chance of injury? No problem. But getting your hair wet on national TV is your biggest concern for this insane challenge?

And number two, because isn't it ironic how Heather worries about getting hr precious hari wet when she leaves the show without any hair at all?

"You're kidding right?" Gwen said. Even though people call her the weird one, I think she's one of the few normal people around here.

"If she's not doing it, I'm not doing it." Lindsay said a matter-of-factly

"But I wanted to see her wet." Cody told me.

I smacked him upside the head.

"Ow, what was that for?" He asked. As if he didn't know.

"Oh, you're doing it." Leshawna ordered Heather.

"Says who?" Asked the queen bee.

"Says me. I'm not losing this challenge cause you got your hair did you spoiled little daddy's girl." Oh boy.

"Back off ghetto glamour too-tight pants wearing rap-star wannabe." Oh crud.

"Mall shopping, pony-tail wearing, _Teen Girl_ reading, peaking-at-high-school prom queen." Oh man.

"Well at least I'm popular." Oh flock.

There were some gasps, some shocked expressions, some grins, and some glances at a mirror. (Well, the last one was only Justin)

"You're jumping!" Leshawna said.

"Make me!" Well, you asked for it.

Leshawna then proceeded to make Heather jump by picking her up and throwing her down the cliff. Ms. Popular screamed all the way down and then hit the water.

"Leshawna, you are so dead!' She yelled.

"Hey, I threw you into the safe zone didn't I? Now I just hope I can hit it too." Leshawna then jumped, and hit the safe zone.

Meanwhile, at the top of the cliff:

"I thought this was going to be a talent contest." Lindsay whimpered.

"Haha yeah, ha-ha no!" Said our friendly neighborhood host-man.

Lindsay then jumped. Gwen followed her.

"Time to impress Gwen." Cody told me, then jumped down. He would have impressed her had he not screamed all the way down.

"Woohoo yeah!" Izzy said on her way down. That girl scares me.

Justin then jumped, but he was way off the safe zone.

"Paddle, paddle!" Leshawna told him. She was on the boat with Cody and Gwen.

The sharks were approaching Justin, but he just took off his shirt and flashed his smile. The sharks then helped him get to land.

"I can't do it. I'm too scared." Beth said at the top. "I'm sorry!" She yelled to the jumpers.

Cody and Leshawna made chicken noises. Lindsay and Heather were talking about how lame it was. This just got a little more interesting.

Next up was me. I did this once. There's no reason I can't do it again. Also, Courtney has to eat her words. I walked to the edge and jumped, flashing my middle finger to the camera because I knew that this moment would not be included in the actual tape.

Of course you broadcast me kissing a guy, but when I jump off a thousand foot cliff into a pool full of sharks (which is probably the most badass moment in my life), it's not shown to the viewing world.

I saw Trent jumping after me. We needed one more for the win.

"Owen's the tie-breaker." I told Trent.

"I hope he jumps."

"Me too. Wait! If he jumps, then he'll land on us and" SPLASH!

I was unable to finish that sentence as a mini-tsunami washed me up on the sand.

"Yes! Yes! Oh yeah! Who's the man?" Owen screamed as all the Gopers cheered and all the Bass sulked.

"The winners! The Screaming Gophers!" Chris said, with a megaphone from the top of the cliff.

'That was awesome dude." Trent complimented. "What's wrong?"

"I uh, think I lost my bathing suit." Oh man, Owen, that was not necessary.

We loaded our crates onto the carts and walked to the cabins. I was paired with Lindsay for cart duty, which isn't so bad until she starts talking about make-up and accessories and perfumes and dresses. All girls stuff.

Along the way Izzy started singing 99 Bottles of Pop on the Wall, and pretty soon, we all joined along.

Lindsay then saw a seashell on the ground.

"It's so pretty." She said, running over to pick it up.

"Sure. Run off. It's not like I need your help pulling this cart or anything!" I yelled.

She then picked up the seashell and ran back to our group.

A little while later, Beth spoke.

"Hey look! There's the campgrounds!" She said, and she was right. The Killer Bass were nowhere to be found, not like I expected them to be there anyway.

"That was pretty easy." Owen said.

"I'm pleasantly surprised." Said Cody.

We began unloading all the crates. Once done, Chris appeared.

"Gophers, as you can see, you are here first."

"Are you just going to waste more of our time, or do you have something important to say?" Gwen asked.

"You thought you could just open your crates, build your hot tub and win the challenge, didn't you?" Chris asked us.

'Well, those _were _the rules." I told him.

"But now there's a little twist. You can only open the crates with your mouths."

"Gwen can open my crate anytime." Cody told me.

"Dude, you're dirtier than a sewer rat." I said.

Then, we began opening, or rather, _trying _to open the crates with our teeth.

We struggled for a while. Or rather, more than a while.

"I'm gonna have the taste of rope stuck in my mouth for the whole day." Cody said.

"Better than having the taste of chef's food stuck in your mouth for the whole day." Leshawna told him. Good one Leshawna.

"What are you talking about? Chef's food is delicious." Owen said. I mean, come on, who else _but _Owen would say that?

We kept trying. Chris came back and reminded us about the rules. Finally, Izzy got her box free.

"Ow, ow. Rope ran on my tongue." She complained afterwards.

Pretty soon, all of our boxes were open.

"Hey! Check it out! I got wood!" Owen said. Um, Owen, you might wanna rethink that last statement.

"I've got some told here, and what looks like a pool liner." Said Trent, emptying his box.

Mine had some planks and some more tools, as well as some nails.

We were just about finished unpacking, when the Killer Bass showed up. Most of them, anyway.

"Aren't you missing a couple of white girls?" Leshawna asked Harold, Ezekiel and Courtney.

The three looked around, and then realized that Leshawna was right.

"They're getting a drink." Courtney said.

Harold muttered something to Ezekiel, the prairie boy then chuckled.

Leshawna then noticed Courtney's swollen left eye.

"Oooo! What happened to your eye girl?"

"Nothing. Just an allergy." Courtney said as she attempted to cover it up.

"I think it's getting worse." Said Ezekiel.

Courtney then whispered something to him.

It took a long time, but eventually, all of the Killer Bass arrived. Sans the BFFFLs. Geoff was standing on top of the crates, attempting to motivate the team. Good luck with that.

Courtney then took charge, ordering Bridgette to go find the two while the rest of the team would open the crates.

While the Screaming Gophers worked as a team, helping each other to build the hot tub, the Killer Bass were fighting over who got the tools and who does what job. There was a complete lack of team chemistry among them.

In the end, the Gophers had an awesome-looking hot tub while Courtney was taping the holes shut for the abysmal disaster of a hot tub.

It was judging time. The two hot tubs were placed next to each other.

Chris walked over to ours first. He stared at it for a while, then declared "This is an awesome hot tub."

We all cheered. Owen popped out from inside the water. What the heck was he doing there?

Chris then went over to the Killer Bass tub. They all gasped. Chris tapped the side, and water squirted out and onto his face. The hot tub then fell into shambles.

'Well, I think we have a winner here." The host said.

I think it should be fairly obvious by now.

"The Screaming Gophers!" He declared. We all cheered as the Bass looked down.

"Gophers, you're safe from elimination. And, you get to rock this awesome hot-tub for the rest of the summer. Bonus!" We cheered again.

The host then turned to the losing team. "Killer Bass, what can I say? Sucks to be you right now. I'll see your sorry butts at the bonfire tonight."

Lindsay, Heather and Beth cheered as they got to stay for more time. Owen cheered too, nothing wrong with that, except for the fact he was also naked.

"We get to stay-ay, we get to stay-ay, we are so awesome. We won the cooontest." He cheered, hugging Heather and Lindsay, who had petrified looks on their faces.

It was evening. Time for dinner. I had skipped dinner yesterday, as had most of the campers, mostly because we were tired and went straight to bed. But today, we had walked a long while so we were hungry. The Killer Bass were having a meeting to discuss who they were voting off.

Duncan suggested Courtney and DJ. Obvious choices since the two didn't jump.

Courtney then suggested that they vote off Tyler.

"Nooooooooooo!" Lindsay screamed at the top of her lungs. Immediately, all attention turned to her.

"Uh- I mean, no salt, there's no salt on the table. Bummer." Wow. Nice save.

Duncan then pointed out that Tyler actually jumped, to which Courtney said 'shut up." Because she couldn't come up with a good counter-argument.

Geoff stepped between them and told them to "chill out". Duncan then left the table.

"You can't do that! We haven't decided who's going yet!" Courtney protested.

And that's when it happened.

"I just don't get why we lost, eh. They're the ones that have six girls." Ezekiel said, jerking his thumb at our table.

_Oh no he didn't._

Immediately, an angry Bridgette and Eva were on his case.

"What's _that _supposed to mean?" The surfer asked him, clearly pissed off.

"Yeah, homeschool, enlighten us!' Eva said, thumping her fists on the table.

"Well, guys are much stronger and better at sports than girls are."

Katie and Sadie were fuming. Harold, Cody and I backed away.

"Oh snap, he did not just say that." Said Geoff.

Yes Geoff, yes he did.

Ezekiel continued, as if he wanted to spite the girls even more. "My dad told me to look out for the girls here, eh, and help em in case they can't keep up." Ezekiel, two words bro: SHUT UP.

Eva grabbed his neck and lifted him up. "Still think we need your help keeping up?!" She roared.

"Not really."

Geoff stepped in to try to defend the dude. Geoff, you're a good guy and I appreciate you trying but there's nothing you can say to calm down the girls.

"Guys, let's give him a break. I mean, at least he doesn't think that guys are smarter than girls."

Eva dropped Ezekiel, who then said "But, they are."

I slapped my face and watched Ezekiel get clobbered by an angry Eva. It took Harold, Bridgette, Courtney, Geoff and Tyler to stop her from killing Ezekiel. Needless to say, she was furious.

"Just wait until the campfire ceremony you misogynist!" She screamed.

"What's a miso-something, eh?" The prairie boy asked Geoff, but at this point even Geoff didn't want to talk to him, for fear of Eva's wrath.

I handed my leftover dinner to Owen, who chomped it down eagerly.

I then left for the cabin. Trent was already there, as was Justin.

Then, someone unexpected popped in. It was Chris.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him.

"Just coming to congratulate you guys on the win." He said.

"No you're not." I shot back.

"Okay, fine, I came here to talk to Justin. Listen, dude, I found out what happened last night, and I want to tell you that from now on, you must sleep in the boy's side, and only the boy's side, agreed?"

"But Chris, it wasn't his fault. The girls forced him." Trent said.

"Yeah. I know, and I already talked to them. Said they'd get kicked off if it happens again. I don't want lawsuits do to males sleeping in female cabins, and vice-versa." The host said.

"It won't happen again." Justin said.

"Good. Now enjoy that party!" Chris said, and headed off.

A little while later, Owen walked in.

"Yo! What up big guy?" Trent asked as they high-fived. Owen then exchanged high-fives with me, then Justin. At this, he swooned and fell down.

"Do you guys think he's-" Trent didn't want to say the g-word.

"No. He just says some dumb stuff that could be interpreted like that, and he's attracted to Justin." I replied.

I climbed into my bunk and read a few chapters, then it was time for the party.

I put on my swim trunks and headed over to the hot tub.

"Dudes, I seriously think Courtney's getting the boot tonight." Said Owen.

"Care to wager on that?" I asked him.

"Well, okay I guess. How much?" He asked. I didn't expect him to agree.

"How's about twenty dollars?" I asked, pulling the money out of my bag. I had fifty dollars stashed in my emergency travel bag.

"So who do _you _think will leave?" He asked.

"I don't know. I guess Ezekiel." I tried to play innocent.

"No way man. Courtney's going for sure. You're gonna owe me twenty bucks." He said.

"So it's a deal then?" I asked him.

"Yep. It's a deal."

We shook on it, because obviously a deal is invalid if the two people do not shake hands.

"Owen, do you even have twenty dollars?"

"Yeah, I got it right in my bag." He pulled out twenty green ones.

I then realized that I had forgotten something! I ran to the confessional.

"Today's challenge was insane! A thousand foot dive into a pool full of sharks? How did Chris even get permission to allow us to do this stunt? I'm glad Owen pulled through, though, and as far as the swap goes, Izzy may be a nut, but she is nowhere near as annoying as Katie. The Killer Bass have a lot of people on the chopping block tonight. Courtney and DJ didn't jump, Katie and Sadie delayed their travel, and Ezekiel made some pretty sexist comments. He should have kept his mouth shut."

I stepped out of the Confession Can.

Cody brought over his chess set to me.

"It's time for round two." He said.

"Bring it on." I replied.

We set the pieces. I was white this time.

We chatted about the first challenge, and then about the Izzy-for-Katie trade.

"I think it worked out in our favor." He told me.

"Definitely."

I was still wondering why the challenge had taken place today. Even if Chris had made a slip up, could he not correct himself?

At last, I had Cody on the ropes. The game was mine for the taking, I could be the first person to beat him in three years…  
"Stalemate." He told me.

"What?"

"A stalemate is when the king is trapped and-"

"I know what a stalemate is!" I checked the board again. No, no, no. This could not be right. He can still move his king. To there, no, over there maybe? Nope, not there either. At last, I came to the conclusion that it was, indeed, a stalemate.

Anywhere his king moved, it would be in check. The king was not currently in check, however.

"So the scores remain tied."

"Indeed they do."

Then Cody offered a toast.

"To the Screaming Gophers!"

"To the Screaming Gophers!" We all said in unison.

The Bass elimination ceremony had just ended, and just like the first time around, Ezekiel had been voted off. Owen handed me twenty bucks.

"Wow, I wouldn't have thought that _he _would be voted off first." Owen said.

Well, he was.

The party rocked until 1 AM, when we decided it was time to get some sleep.

The boys and girls went their separate ways.

I realized that Chris actually was a dickhead with the bunk beds. There were four beds and five guys.

"I can sleep on the floor if you guys want." Owen said, lying on the floor.

"Are you sure?" I asked him, to find that he was already asleep.

"So Justin, do you want the top bunk?" Cody asked.

"Nah." He said. He was totally anti-me.

I climbed to the top and dozed off. So far, things were going well. We won the first challenge, I have a couple of friends and no one hates me. I went off to dreamland.

* * *

Two chapters in two days! Woot!


	5. Free as a Bird

Total Drama Island © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

* * *

_**Total Drama Redemption**_

**Day Three (03)**

I got out of bed, stretched my arms and let out a long yawn. Just like yesterday, I was the only person still in bed.

I was definitely the laziest person in that cabin.

I checked my clock. It was 10:34. Oh crap! I overslept again. My boss is going to kill me.

Aw man, I did it again.

"You're on Total Drama Island, Noah! You're not an adult! Get that through the thick head of yours!" I said, knocking my head a couple times.

I tried to recall the events of yesterday.

We had won the challenge, and then we had a hot tub party. The party lasted until one in the night. I then went to bed. That seems about right.

I grabbed a fresh change of clothes, and went to the bathroom. Except it wasn't the bathroom, it was the Confession Can.

I was about to take a whizz when I realized where I was.

"Whoops. Wrong room." I said as I exited the confessional.

I then went to the Communal Washrooms. Cody was sitting outside, talking with Owen about something. They noticed me.

"Good morning sleepy head." Cody said to me.

"Sorry. I just felt so exhausted about that party. How did you two get up so early?" I said.

"Well, I am used to late nights of gaming, so I wasn't all that tired." Said Cody.

"I was just so pumped after we won the first challenge, man! I can't wait for today's challenge!" Said Owen

"Um, dude, there _is _no challenge today." Cody told him.

"What? Are you sure?" Owen asked.

"Yeah. Chris told us in the Mess Hall this morning, remember?" Cody said.

"I guess I mustn't have been paying attention then."

"Yep. Sorry to burst your bubble, dude."

"Oh well, we'll be having our next one soon enough."

"How can you be _excited _about the challenges?" I asked him.

"It's really fun, you know? I like doing stuff with other people, especially guys."

At that, Cody and I shot him an awkward face. Owen wondered why we were doing that, and then he figured it out.

"I mean, not like that, you know? Girls are cool. They're the best things ever, well, except for boys. Wait no!" He continued to go on for some time, not really making any sense at all.

"I'm gonna go take a bath. Call me when he gets to the point." I told Cody.

The tech geek chuckled, and I went into the washrooms.

I brushed my teeth, undressed, and turned on the water. I wasn't ready for the chillness and shivered. It was as cold as ice, but at least it shook me out of my groggy state.

I turned off the water, put on my fresh set of clothes, and went outside. Cody and Owen were still there, talking about something.

"Owen told me about the bet you made last night." Cody said.

"But why did you think Ezekiel was going to get the boot?" Owen asked. Aw crud.

I thought about this for a moment. "Well, he did tick off all of the girls with his comments. I assumed that all the girls would vote for him. The only problem was that there were only five girls on that team compared to six guys."

"Yeah, so what guys do you think voted for him?" Cody asked.

Again, I thought. "The other guys on that team are Geoff, Duncan, DJ, Harold and Tyler."

"I'm guessing Duncan voted for Courtney because he kept on saying he would yesterday. Tyler probably also voted for Courtney because she wanted the Bass to vote him off. That leaves DJ, Harold, and Geoff. DJ probably voted for the fellow non-jumper, and seeing how much Geoff defended Zeke, I think it's safe to say that he didn't vote for him. Harold was probably the one who voted for Zeke then, because I doubt Ezekiel would vote for himself, no matter how dumb he is." I concluded.

"Yours is a beautiful mind, Noah." Cody said, complimenting me. That was a close one.

"Thank you." I said.

So, the plausible voting for the first ceremony was like this:

Bridgette – Ezekiel

Courtney – Ezekiel

DJ – Courtney

Duncan – Courtney

Eva – Ezekiel

Ezekiel – Courtney

Geoff – Courtney

Harold – Ezekiel

Katie – Ezekiel

Sadie – Ezekiel

Tyler – Courtney

Total: Courtney (5); Ezekiel (6)

Eliminated: Ezekiel

"So Harold was the deciding vote. Interesting." Said Owen.

"Your pick of Courtney wasn't too bad. Had Ezekiel not uttered those comments, she would have been voted off for sure." I said.

"Pretty cool, although we'll never know for sure how the voting went." Cody said.

This brought me back to the switch that occurred yesterday during the last challenge. We had received Izzy, and they had got Katie.

I saw Izzy sitting on the dock, her feet dipped in the water, and walked over to talk to her.

"Hey, watcha dooooin?" I asked her. Definitely not as cute as Isabella.

"Oh hi Noah." The crazy redhead said. "I'm trying to catch fish with my toes. It really tickles when they rub past your feet! You wanna try?" She asked.

"No thanks. I'll pass." I said.

"Your loss." Yeah, whatever.

"So, what was it like on the Killer Bass?" I asked.

She looked a bit confused by my question.

"Why do you want to know?" She asked.

"Just curious."

"Well, I was only there for one day. Sadie was lamenting about Katie; Courtney, DJ and Bridgette were trying to console her; Eva was telling her to man up. Harold and Geoff were talking to Ezekiel about the 'real world'; and Tyler was playing soccer with Duncan."

"And what were you doing?"

"Stealing the ball and running away with it during the middle of their game."

"Of _course _you were."

"But I think the Gophers side is better though."

"And why is that?"

"Because we won of course!"

"Well that's an acceptable answer."

"I felt kind of like a spy, you know? I have the entire enemy's information! The Screaming Gophers will triumph for sure!"

"Yay for us." I said, weakly pumping my fist in the air.

"You sure you don't want to try feet fishing?"

"I'm pretty sure." I said, leaving the dock.

"I see what you did there." Cody came up to me and said.

"What did I do?" I asked.

"Oh you know what you did Mr. Smooth."

"Cody, just because I talked to a girl doesn't mean I was hitting on her."

"You gonna get some tonight?" He asked.

I slapped my face. "Damnit Cody, just leave me alone."

"Whatever you say, bro."

I didn't understand it. It was probably because the only girl he had talked to was Gwen, and he had a crush on her. Therefore, he thinks that I have a crush on Izzy.

I went over to the Confession Cam.

"Listen, Izzy is a nice girl and all, but she's just so crazily insane! I mean, she was fishing with her feet for goodness sakes! Who in their right mind does that?"

What Izzy told me made me glad that I didn't switch places instead of her. I would probably have gotten bullied just like Harold was, and man, some of the stuff they did to him, I wouldn't even wish on my worst enemy. But I was getting ahead of myself. There was still a long way to go before that started, and hopefully, I would stay on the island up till then.

Owen walked up to me. "Hey Noah, come on. It's time for lunch!"

"I guess it's more like brunch for me."

"Haha. You're so funny, Noah. I wish I was like you."

"Aw, come on Owen, don't say that. You have plenty of good qualities."

"Like what?"

"Well," I paused a moment to think. "You're always really cheerful whereas I'm usually cynical. You're so energetic compared to a lazy wiseass like me."

"Yeah, I guess I really am full of energy, aren't I?" He then let loose a fart.

"You're also full of those." I said, plugging my nose and running away from him.

"Sorry!" He yelled.

I went to the Mess Hall. Cody was there. He was playing Mario Kart on his DS.

Chef served me two scoops of slop, and I made my way to the cafeteria table.

"You know, I heard that if you plug your nose and swallow something, you can't even taste it." I informed Cody.

"That's an interesting tidbit." He said, looking up from his Nintendo. "Do you know why?"

"Because part of our taste buds are activated by the smell of the food. In general, food that smells good is delicious, whereas food that smells yucky, is not."

"I see."

"The only problem is that it doesn't work with Chef's food." I said, desperately trying to choke down some of said food.

If I had any other option, I would gladly take it, but I was starving, and I had also missed breakfast, which is widely considered the most important meal of the day.

"Hey guys." Trent said, sitting across from us. I hadn't seen him the whole morning.

"Yo, Trent, what up?" Cody asked.

We exchanged high-fives as Trent began to (try to) eat the food.

"So, what's new?" Cody asked him.

"Oh, nothing much." Trent said. He face then began to turn green. "Can you excuse me for a moment?" He then ran outside as Cody and I heard vomiting noises.

Trent then came back in, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "Must have been the after-effects of that party last night."

"Or Chef's food." I suggested.

"You know, now that I think about it, I'm picking the latter."

We exchanged a hearty laugh. This was great for me. Sitting with friends and chatting away, with a couple of jokes thrown in here and there. I was so busy as an adult that I didn't have much time for all those things.

Owen then walked in. "Are you gonna eat that?" He asked.

"What do you think the answer is, Owen?" I asked him as he grabbed the three trays and shoveled the food down his mouth. He then belched afterwards.

"I still don't know how you manage to eat that." I said. My stomach grumbled.

"You hungry?" Cody asked.

"Yeah. I missed breakfast and I only ate a part of my lunch."

"Here, take this." He said, handing me a chocolate bar. "It's not much but it's good food."

"Thanks." I said, taking it from his hand and chomping it. It tasted good and crunchy. CRUNCHY?

"These don't have peanuts in them, do they?" I asked Cody.

"They do. Why do you ask?"

"I'm allergic to peanuts!" I ran outside and scratched like crazy. Peanuts made me do that. Well, it was actually the Immunoglobulin E in peanuts that made me do that.

"Oh crud! I'm so sorry Noah!" Cody said.

"You didn't know." I told him, scratching my arm "I should have told you before."

"Oh man this is horrible."

"It'll wear off after about an hour." I said, still itching like crazy. I ran to the communal washrooms, ripped off my clothes and turned on the water. It was still as cold as it was in the morning. Good. I was hoping it would make me numb so I wouldn't feel itchy.

I think it worked, because when I came out of the washroom it was evening. I had lost track of the time!

I turned off the water, put on my clothes and left.

_Glad I'm not the one paying the water bill._

I saw Owen close by. He looked disappointed.

"What's the matter big fella? Something got you down?" I asked.

"Yesterday, at around this time, Ezekiel was voted off."

"And we were having a rocking hot tub party!"

"It's just that I never got to know him. He was here and then he was gone."

"He came, he talked, he got voted off!" I joked. Owen didn't get it.

"Julius Caesar" I tried to explain, but he still didn't get it.

"It wasn't even Ezekiel's fault either! He was just saying what his father told him, and he was never exposed to the 'real world'!" Owen said.

"Owen, we're high schoolers. We haven't exactly experienced the 'real world' either."

"It's just not fair."

"Owen, I know you're upset and all, so heres the twenty dollars back." I gave it back to him. He shoved it away.

"It's not about the money, Noah."

"It's about sending a message?"

"Would you be serious for just a moment?" He asked. It was unusual to see him so uptight. He was usually so cheerful. "I just feel really bad for Ezekiel. I never even talked to him."

"Owen, listen." I said. "I know you're upset about him leaving the show, but it was the Killer Bass's choice, not ours. People are gonna leave Owen, and they're gonna keep leaving until only one person remains. That's just the way it is. There's nothing that we can do about it except try our hardest to not be the next one to go. The only way to do that is to do well in the challenges. Don't think about it too much. It strains your brain." I would know. I had been thinking about it for eight years. "Now go to bed and wake up tomorrow with the usual cheerful attitude that you have."

Owen pulled me in for a hug. "Thank you so much buddy."

"Um, Owen?"

"What?"

"You're kind of suffocating me here."

"Oh. Sorry." He said, letting go of me. "And by the way, did you recover from eating that candy bar?"

"Yeah. I'm fine now. C'mon, let's go to our cabin." I said, as we headed off.

I opened the door and looked in. Justin and Trent were already asleep. Cody had set up the chess pieces and was sitting on a chair playing his DS. He looked up.

"I'm surprised you didn't bring Izzy here."

"Izzy? What about Izzy?" Owen asked.

"Nothing!" I quickly said. "You know Cody. He's always kidding around."

"Oh. Okay then." Owen said.

"Hey Owen, are you sure you want to sleep on the floor?"

"Yeah. I just can't fall asleep on these creaky bunk beds. I think the floor is much more comfortable."

"Suit yourself then." I said, heading over to Cody.

"So, you and Izzy huh?" He asked me.

"I was just talking to her about what it was like being on the Killer Bass. Only this and nothing more." Unintended reference to _The Raven_ there.

"Sure." He said, moving his bishop.

I studied where it was attacking, and moved my pawn accordingly.

"So what about you and Gwen?"

"She totally wants me dude."

"Riiiiiiiight."

"I think she's the hottest girl here."

"Cody, you really shouldn't reduce girls to eye candy." I was being hypocritical.

"It's a compliment, and besides, they're probably doing the same thing except with guys."

"And male model here is probably at number one for everyone." I said, jerking my thumb at the sleeping Justin.

"Anyway, I think Lindsay is pretty hot too. Oh, and so is Heather."

"You think she's hot?"

"Yeah. She might be mean but I still think she's pretty hot."

"I think we should move on to a different subject."

"Yeah. We probably should."

"So, what do you think our second challenge will be?"

"I don't know. I just hope it isn't as insane as the last one was."

"Yeah. That one was pretty wild, and it was only the first challenge!"

"I'm hoping the craziness of the challenges is inversely proportional to the number of the challenge."

"Talking in geek terms, I see."

"I pay attention in school."

"Well, you should have paid attention to this game!" He said. "Cause you just lost it."

"What?" I studied the board. Not only had Cody made me lose the game, but he had also made me lose _the _game.

"No. It's not possible! Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!" I said.

"You're in checkmate my good friend. 1-0 Cody."

This sucked, especially since I had the advantage in the previous game and threw it away like a pile of unwanted papers.

"Good game." I said, trying not to be a sourpuss about it.

He extended his hand, and I shook it.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, it took me three games to beat you."

"That doesn't really help."

"Good night Mr. Smooth."

"Good night Codemeister."

Those were the last words that I uttered before drifting off.

* * *

That's the first non-episode-centric chapter, minus the chapters in the future. Also why this one was shorter than the previous two. The campers do not compete in challenges every day, so I wanted to showcase some of what goes on during the non-challenge days. Hope you liked it. Next chapter will be up soon.


	6. The Awake-athon

Total Drama Island © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

The novels mentioned in this chapter are not owned by me.

* * *

_**Total Drama Redemption**_

**Day Four (04)**

The blare of an air horn was what woke me up today. I looked at the clock on the desk next to me. It was 7 AM. I only get up that early to go to work! The other guys in the cabin also groaned.

Cody rubbed his eyes. "What time is it?" He asked.

Resisting the urge to say Adventure Time, I told him it was seven o'clock.

"I don't even wake up this early to go to school." Trent said.

"Me neither." Owen added.

"But Owen, aren't you excited that it's time for the next challenge?" I told him.

"It's the next challenge? Woohoo!" He yelled.

"Wait. How do you know that today is a challenge day?" Trent asked me. I had forgotten that I was the only one with any knowledge about future events.

"Well, we had a free day yesterday. Plus, why else would Chris be waking us up this early?" I said. Hope they buy it.

"I guess." Cody said. They bought it.

"Say, Mr. Future, can you tell me the next one to go?" Trent said. Oh crap! I had been found out!

I just sat there, wondering what to say, when Trent patted me on the back.

"I'm just messing with you, man." So he wasn't on to me.

"I think we should go outside." Justin said groggily.

"You talk?" Said Cody, astonished.

We walked outside our cabins along with the sixteen other tired teenagers. Except one of them wasn't tired.

"How are you not sleepy Beth?" I asked.

"Well, I _do _work on a farm, tho I'm uthed to getting up pretty early. It hath changed my definition of the word early, acthually."

"I see."

I stood next to Owen while Cody stood by Eva. He saw her iPod and reached for it, Eva growled at him, nearly biting his finger off in the process, and the geek retracted his hand.

The first time around, Eva had a Walkman. Times change, I guess.

"Morning. Hope you slept well." Chris said. I bet he went to sleep early yesterday because he was looking fresh as ever.

"Okay. I hope you're all ready because your next challenge begins in exactly one minute!"

"Oh, excuse me. I don't know if that's enough time to eat breakfast." Owen said.

"Oh, you'll get breakfast, Owen." The sadistic host said. "Right after you complete your twenty kilometer run around the lake!"

"Oh, so you're funny now?" An enraged Eva asked. "You know what I think would be funny?" She extended her fist to punch the host. Geoff and Duncan had to hold her back. I think she was still pissed off about Ezekiel's comments two days ago.

Courtney whispered something to the fitness buff.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Eva asked the host.

"A little." Of course he was enjoying it. "You have thirty seconds…"

We walked up to the grounds and lined up against each other.

"Okay runners." Chris said. "On your marks, get set, GO!"

At that moment, some people bolted off, some started walking briskly, and some, like me, just walked lazily. I knew this wasn't the real challenge and had to conserve my energy, but it can't look too obvious.

Then I saw Heather walking in front of me, and sped up, kicking her leg. (On accident of course).

"Do you mind?" she asked. I acted like I didn't hear her. I kept jogging until I saw Owen licking water from a pond in front of me.

"Um, that's not really safe but I don't think you care." I said. He didn't hear me.

"I was right, you don't care." I said, and took off. The fatso looked up to see if anyone was talking to him, and went back to sipping the water.

Then Chris drove by on his RV. "Pick it up people." He yelled into his megaphone. "If you're not back by dinner time, you don't eat."

Says the guy riding the RV.

I kept jogging for a while, but my legs felt weak after a while. I saw Geoff and Eva running in front of me and tried to catch up, but I was so exhausted. I collapsed on the ground.

I woke just in time to hear that we won the challenge. I cheered. Wait. Where the heck was I? I looked around. It was the Mess Hall.

_How did I get here?_

Then I remembered what had happened during this episode. I had passed out and Owen had carried me to the Cafeteria.

"Thanks, Owen."

"No problem bud."

Just then, Chris spoke. "Whoa there! Hold your horses guys! That wasn't the challenge."

"What did he just say?" Gwen asked us.

"He said that wasn't the challenge, Gilda." Said Lindsay.

Gwen looked slightly ticked off. "It's _Gwen_."

Chris then cleared his throat. The universal sign that you want people to pay attention to you. And boy, did Chris _love _attention.

"Who's hungry?" He asked. He was standing in front of a curtain, which opened to reveal a feast.

I think I drooled when I saw that. It looked like a Thanksgiving dinner. There was turkey, mashed potatoes, sandwiches, baked beans, maple syrup, juice, milk, soda, cream gravy, potato chips, ketchup; I could go on and on. In short, it looked delicious.

I knew that this was just pre-challenge. I knew that eating the food would make it harder for me to stay awake. My brain was yelling no, but my taste buds were screaming yes.

"I can't believe it! Real food!" I said to Cody while gobbling it down. Cody was too busy munching to listen to me.

I think we finished that feast in less than ten minutes. Eating nothing but Chef's food for three days does that to you.

"Okay campers. Time for part two of you challenge!" Chris yelled over his megaphone.

"I thought eating was the second part." Said Owen, with food all over his mouth.

"What more do you want from us?" Gwen asked.

"Weird Goth girl is right. Haven't we been through enough?" Asked weird snooty girl.

"Um, let me think about that…no!" Said Chris. "It's time for…The Awake-a-thon!"

"The what-a-thon?" Owen asked.  
"Don't worry. This is an easy one. The team with the last camper standing wins invincibility!"

Yeah, that would have been easy had we not run twenty kilometers and then eaten a Thanksgiving dinner!

"So, what you're saying is that a 20K run and a turkey eating frenzy were part of your evil plan to make it harder for us to stay awake?" Gwen hit the nail on the head with that one.

"That's right Gwen!"

"Man, he's good." She said.

"Move, move, move!" The host exclaimed, as we all began to leave the building. Trent went over to talk to Gwen.

I went to talk to Chris about any specific rules. Cody joined me.

"So, what exactly constitutes as _sleeping_?" I asked him.

"If you close your eyes for over ten seconds, you are out." Chris replied.

"So we can continuously close our eyes for nine seconds?" Cody asked.

"Don't push it. Doing that a lot will also lead to you being out."

"Are we allowed to use anything to keep us occupied?" I asked Chris.

"That reminds me" He grabbed his megaphone. "Campers, you have ten minutes to go into your cabins and grab whatever you feel will help you stay awake. You are not allowed to go back to the cabins again until you are out of the challenge, so be sure to choose wisely!"

I headed to the male side of the Gopher Cabin. Cody was already there, hurriedly sorting through his stuff. "Here it is!" He exclaimed, grabbing his Nintendo DS.

I grabbed the novels from my duffel bag: _The Great Gatsby, A Tale of Two Cities, The Things They Carried, The Count of Monte Cristo. _That was it? Only four novels, and of them, one of which I had already read thrice? I knew I should have put Hamlet or the Odyssey in there, but I was worried about the bag being too heavy.

I headed outside. Cody followed soon after, his arms full of comic books.

Chris was saying something over the loudspeakers. "Campers, you now have five minutes left to get back to the campfire pit."

I walked back to the place where all the eliminations would take place.

"Let's hope we don't have to come back to this place _after _the challenge." Trent told me. I noticed his hands were empty.

"You didn't bring anything?" I asked.

"Nah. My guitar would just make people sleepier, and I don't want to sabotage my team."

"I have some novels if you want to read them."

"I'll ask you if I need one." He said. "You know, I'm gonna take a stroll. You want to join?"

"No thanks. I'm fine."

Chris's voice sounded again. "Attention campers! There are now only two minutes left until The Awake-a-thon begins. That means that if you're not here in two minutes, then you're immediately disqualified. And then your team will hate you."

The only campers that were missing were Owen, Lindsay and Geoff.

Lindsay came running to the campfire pit. "Sorry, I was just applying some make-up."

"Why did she feel the need to apply make-up?" I asked Cody.

"Girls. Their brains are hard to understand." Said Cody.

I nodded in agreement.

Owen arrived, panting.

"What were you doing?" I asked him.

"Eating, of course. I need enough energy to last for the whole day."

"The average human can go three weeks without food."

"Really? I don't think I could go even three _days _without food."

"No, that rule applies to _water_."

Our conversation was interrupted when Geoff showed up. He had some bottles of soda in his hand. "I'm here dudes!"

"And not a moment too soon, Geoff." Said Chris. "Your next challenge begins… now."

I checked the wristwatch I had on. It was now 10 AM.

"Dudes. I've got this thing for sure!" Geoff exclaimed. "With this much soda, there's no way I'll fall asleep!" He then proceeded to chug a two-liter bottle.

"Can that guy chug or what?" Owen asked me.

"Listen up campers!" Chris said.

"We're all here!" Courtney shouted back.

"I need to explain the rules of this challenge."

But the campers kept talking.

"Can I have your attention please?" He said.

"Will the real slim shady please stand up?" Duncan joked.

"Enough with the wisecracks! If you don't listen up, your team will lose!" An infuriated Chris yelled.

I wondered how this was possible, since people from both teams were talking.

Everyone now remained silent, as the host cleared his throat and began to speak. "So, there are some rules that must be followed. First of all, a person is out of the contest if their eyes are closed for more than ten seconds." At this statement, a bunch of hands went up. "And no, you cannot constantly close your eyes for nine seconds and then reopen them." The hands went down. "There will be a bathroom break every four hours. Whether or not you want to go is up to you. Just know that you can _only _go during the bathroom breaks. Also, you only get two minutes for the break. Chef will escort you there so don't try any funny business. The third rule, or is it the fourth rule? I don't know. I've lost count. Anyway, it must be known that you cannot leave the campfire pit unless it's for a bathroom break. Doing so will result in you being kicked out of the challenge. All of these rules only apply if you're still in the contest. And with that, you may start your challenge."

Immediately a lot of the campers resumed talking. Some of them were clarifying doubts to their fellow team members, while others were wishing they had brought more stuff.

Harold then told Geoff that his soda plan wouldn't work.

"Soda makes you hyperactive, and there's no way someone can fall asleep when they're hyperactive." The party boy said.

"It does make a person hyperactive, but only for a short period of time. What happens after this time period?" The nerd asked him.

"The energy goes away and you crash." Geoff had realized his blunder. "Aw man, Harold, why couldn't you tell me this _before _I chugged a two-liter bottle?"

"I tried to, but Chris was explaining the rules."

"Well, there's nothing I can do now but hope that the hyperactive-ness lasts till the end."

Geoff was already so full of energy. I didn't understand why he brought so many bottles of soda. Harold was right, once that energy goes away, it's all Z's.

I checked my watch. It was 10:09. Aw man, it hadn't even been ten minutes yet.

I looked around. Tyler was walking around the pit. Courtney was walking in place. Owen was repeatedly punching the air with his fists.

One would think that being active would help you stay awake, but I believe it is actually the exact opposite. By exercising, you are using up the energy stored in your body.

"I've always wanted to stay up for a whole night! And now, I finally can!" Owen said.

I was bored. I tried to refrain from reading my books so early on, but they were just so tempting. I finally gave in and picked up _A Tale of Two Cities_, and began reading it.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…"

I was muttering the lines to myself, because I thought reading silently would make me fall asleep. I finished the novel, and picked up _The Great Gatsby._

Once I finished that, I picked up _The Things They Carried, _followed by _The Count of Monte Cristo_. It was getting pretty predictable after the fourth read.

_Don't look at the clock, don't look at the clock._

Of course, the next thing I did was look at my watch. 6:34 Post Meridiem. It had been eight and a half hours. I had missed two bathroom breaks because I was so concentrated on reading. I noticed Cody reading a comic book, and walked over to him.

"Hey buddy." I said.

"Hey man, just reading my 32nd comic of the day." He said. "You want to read one?"

Now, under normal circumstances, I would have, without a doubt, said no. But I was really bored and had already read all of my novels, so I agreed. How bad could it be?

"Oh man, this is bad." I said. "Cody, how can you read this kind of stuff?"

"Dude, superhero comics are awesome." He shot back.

"They're all so cliché. Bad guy terrorizes city, hero defeats bad guy, end of story. Big flippin' deal."

"And I suppose your novels are _so _much better?"

"Yeah. For sure. Just read a page of this and tell me which one is better: comics or novels." I handed him _A Tale of Two Cities._

"I think I had to read this once for a 9th grade English project." He said, then took it.

"And did you read it?"

"No. I just went to SparkNotes. Who reads this sort of stuff anyway? I mean! Oh crap!"

I glared at him. Well, I guess it's okay since I was wondering who would read comic books. But I didn't tell him that.

"Aw man, I didn't mean it like that. I'll even read the book, see?" He began reading "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" but he stopped about halfway through.

"Man, these books are just so convoluted. I can't understand any of them. There are just so many big and confusing words. At least in comic books, you know exactly what is going on."

"Alright, whatever." I said.

"Say, do you know what time it is?"

I looked at my watch. "8 PM."

"So it's been _how many_ hours?"

"Ten."

"I would normally be awake for this amount of time anyway."

I looked at him. "Hey Cody, where's your DS?"

"Oh that thing, it ran out of batteries a few hours ago, I'm such an idiot for forgetting to bring replacement batteries." He said, smacking his head.

"And now it's getting pretty dark. I can't make out the words." He continued. "Why didn't I bring my flashlight?"

"Don't strain your eyes. It'll make you go to sleep faster."

I looked at the other contestants. Not one of them had fallen asleep yet.

"When do you think the sandman will get em?" I asked.

"The Sandman? You mean Flint Marko from The Amazing Spiderman?" He asked.

I face palmed. "No, not that one. You know, the sandman that supposedly puts everyone to sleep?" He stared at me blankly.

"Alright, I'm really frickin bored right now. Any suggestions?" I asked.

"I'm bored as heck too."

We just sat on the tree stumps silently. It was at this time when I started thinking about stupid questions, and the stupid answers for the stupid questions.

_What if at the beginning of time, everyone had a wish, but then one person wished that away?_

_What if humans are actually aliens that invaded Earth and killed the previous inhabitants then made up evolution as a cover up?_

_What if the government is spying on us through our technology?_

_How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a Tootsie Pop?_

_What if Izzy is actually perfectly normal and WE'RE the ones that are insane?_

I knew that last one couldn't be true. I was going to think of more dumb questions, but Chris's voice sounded.

"We are now twelve hours in with all 21 campers still wide awake."

Well, I wouldn't say _wide_ awake but we were all still hanging in there. Owen was still punching his fists in the air. Most of the other Gophers were sitting on the stumps.

"Woohoo! Stay awake for twelve hours? I could do that in my sleep. Woohoo!" Owen said, and then he crashed to the ground. The big guy was the first to fall.

"There goes our one man advantage." I told Cody.

"This is the most boring thing I have ever done in my life." Gwen said, letting out a yawn.

"Could be way worse." Trent said.

"Oh yeah? How?"

"I could be stuck here without you to talk to." Nice one Trent.

Lindsay was standing upside down, and Gwen asked her what she was doing.

"Trying to get the blood to rush to my head. I think it's working!" The blonde bombshell said.

_It's probably working because you have nothing else in that head of yours._

"Can I try?" Beth asked her.

"Sure." Said Lindsay. Heather grinned at the two wickedly.

"Lindsay, Beth, can I talk to you two for a sec?" Heather asked them.

I wanted to tell them not to do it. That they'd become pawns in Heather's game. That they would be miserable. But how could I? I wasn't supposed to know that, and neither did any of the other campers except for Heather. I couldn't seem suspicious, so I let Beth and Lindsay join Heather's alliance. Not much I could do to thwart it anyway.

"Oh yeah, campers! It's now time for the third bathroom break. Who's coming?" Chris Maclean asked.

I got up. So did Geoff, Izzy, Leshawna, Courtney, and Harold.

"Follow me you maggots!" Chef ordered. He led us to the communal washrooms. "I'll be standing outside, so don't try anything."

"We know. You've already told us this the last two times, GOSH!" Shouted Harold.

"Well, I needed to make it clear for scrawny kid here." He said, gesturing to me.

Chef wouldn't let us all go in the bathroom at the same time, for suspicion that we would "be plotting something"

After that, Chef led us back to the campfire pit.

"Reminds me of the day Ezekiel left." Geoff said.

"Hopefully, he's in a better place now." Said Izzy.

"Izzy, he's not dead!" Leshawna said.

"Enough talking with the other team. Go sit your butts down and talk with your own darn team!" Said Chef. Man, I would have liked him a lot more if he was Samuel L. Jackson.

I sat down on my stumps. I checked my watch. It was now 10:53 PM.

Cody came up to me. "Dude, I almost forgot!"

"Forgot what?" I asked him.

"Aw great. You forgot too. Our nightly chess game man."

"Do we have to do it in the middle of challenges?"

"Well, it will help in staving off sleep."

"That _is _true."

"I may have forgotten a flashlight and extra batteries for my DS, but not my chess set!" He exclaimed.

"Thou shalt not forget to bringeth your chess set."

We set up all the pieces.

"Hey Noah, I'm too tired to talk during the game, so can this one be a quiet match?"

"No problem. I don't want to waste my energy talking."

For the first time, we played a match without talking about anything. Sure, there had been moments in the previous three games when no one talked. But that was mostly because we were in deep thought and didn't want to get distracted by talking, even though that's how I lost the previous game. For the fourth game, however, we weren't talking because we were tired, exhausted, worn out, beat. We wanted to go to sleep so badly, but we also didn't want to let our team down by doing so. It was a matter of conflicting desires.

We kept playing in silence. I sometimes imagined the rook pulling out a sword and decimating the pawn with it, like a game of Wizard's Chess from _Harry Potter_. Lack of sleep can do that to you.

I continued to play, not knowing what the heck was going on. I don't think he did either. At one point, he set his bishop directly in front of my queen. I made an equal number of idiotic moves by missing an easy knight capture as well as sacrificing my own knight for no reason.

In the end, he had a king and a pawn, while I had a king. My king was closer to his pawn than his king was, so I captured it and the game ended in a draw since a king could not put the other king in check.

"That was by far the dumbest game of chess I have ever played." I declared afterwards.

"Yeah. I think I played better when I was a seven year old." Cody admitted. "You wanna go again?"

"I think we should stick to one game per night. Even if it will help us stay awake. It helps keep the game fresh."

"Yeah. I know what you mean. A lot of times I will play something so much that I begin to get bored by it due to the frequency."

"That's exactly what I mean."

"So what should we do now?"

I thought about this, and then remembered what day it was. "I can make anything relate to four."

"Where did that come from?"

"Well, it is our fourth day here."

"It is isn't it?"

"So tell me something and I can make it relate to four."

"What about my name?"

"Cody has four letters, C,O,D, and Y."

"Well what about pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis?"

"Isn't that some sort of lung disease?"

"And it's the longest word that I know."

I counted the letters. "Well, it has 45 letters."

"What has 45 letters?"

I knew he said that on purpose. I sighed. "Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis"

"Didn't know that before."

"You learn something new every day. Anyway, pneumono- I mean, _that word _has forty-five letters."

"Yeah."

"And the word 'forty-five' has nine letters."

"So?"

"The word nine has four letters."

"But what about Total Drama Island?"

"That word has 16 letters, sixteen has 7 letters, seven has 5 letters and five has four letters. Everything relates to four."

"Even the word 'I'?"

"I is 1 letter. One has 3 letters. Three has 5 letters. And, as said before, five has four letters."

"Dude. No frickin way."

"I told you man, everything relates to four." I said smugly. He didn't believe me and kept telling me more words such as supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, five hundred billion and _Doctor Who._

I glanced down at my watch. It was 11:58 PM. It had just been about fourteen hours since the challenge started, and only one person was asleep. How much longer could I carry on?

* * *

(Insert something here)


	7. Tired? There's a Nap for That

Total Drama Island © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

* * *

_**Total Drama Redemption**_

**Day Five (05)**

Sleep deprivation is the condition that occurs when the body does not get enough muscle relaxation.

I was currently undergoing it right now.

I looked at my watch. It was 12:01, just past midnight.

"It is officially the second day of the challenge!" Chris said. "I'm surprised that only one of you guys has gone to sleep so far."

I looked at Owen. The big guy was still asleep, gently snoring.

He looked so peaceful.

_Go to sleep Noah. You know you want to. _

No, I don't.

_You lie! C'mon Noah, go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep little Noah…_

I knocked on my head and yelled "Stop that!"

Cody looked at me with an awkward glance.

"Sorry. My stupid brain keeps talking to me."

"Oooo! Ooo! My brain does that to me too!" Said a certain redhead. "But then, repeatedly slam my head against a hard surface until it stops. I do feel dizzy afterwards though."

"A dizzy Izzy?" Cody questioned.

"Yeah! And this one time, my brain told me to jump off a thousand foot cliff into a lake full of sharks, and guess what? I did it!"

Cody was about to tell her that she was talking about the first challenge.

"Well you're certainly making _me _dizzy with all of your rambling." I said.

"Well, I'll talk to you guys later. I have to go finish the story I was telling Leshawna about how I singlehandedly brought down a criminal kingpin." She went off to go bug Leshawna.

The night was very dark. The moon, the stars and the torches by the campfire pit were the only sources of light.

"Hey Cody, you wanna look at constellations?"

"Well, I've got nothing better to do."

I pointed out to him the constellations that I could name off the top of my head.

"That one's Orion the hunter, and over there is the Little Dipper."

"That's pretty cool. All of the shapes and figures were above my head the whole time and I never knew it until now."

"Better late than never."

"Hey, what's that constellation up there?" He asked, pointing up at the night sky.

"That's Cancer the crab."

"There's a crab named Cancer? Where's herpes the hound?"

"Hey look, Castor and Pollux are out tonight!" I said, ignoring his last comment.

"Who are they?"

"Greek legend says that they were conjoined twins who fought in battles alongside Hercules and Achilles."

"Hercules. That's the really strong guy, right?"

"Yes Cody."

"Hey Noah, I have a doubt lingering in my head."

"What is it?"

"It's been bugging me all day. Well, you know how yesterday Chris made us do that 20K run and then he fed us real food?"

"I can still taste some of that." I told him.

"Well, I know the run made us use some of our energy, wearing us out, but what part did the Thanksgiving dinner play in making us sleepier? Do you have any idea?"

"Actually, I do. Turkey contains a substance known as tryptophan. This alone is not enough to cause drowsiness, but since we ate it along with many foods that contain carbohydrates, the combination resulted in us feeling tired." I let out a yawn after that statement. My brain still remembered that even though I was tired as heck.

"How long do you think we can go at this?" Cody asked, letting out a yawn.

"Well, the longest that a person has ever stayed awake is eleven hours, but the average human can last without sleep for eight days."

"But those humans didn't have to endure a 20K jog and a heavy lunch."

"Right."

"Noah, you're so smart. How do you know all this?"

"I read a lot. And I'm only smart in some areas. I don't know jack about video games or comics."

"Both of which I brought here but are useless now."

We sat in silence for a couple more minutes, and then we heard Chris speak.

"It's time for a bathroom break campers!"

Only Eva got up. Everyone else was too tired to move. "I'm going to the bathroom." The fitness buff said.

She stuffed her iPod in her pocket as Chef began to take her there. Along the way, Eva's iPod fell on the ground.

Heather noticed this, went over to where Eva dropped her iPod, made it look like she was stretching, and bent down and picked it up. She then went back to where she was originally sitting: next to Lindsay and Beth. It looked like nothing had happened.

I could have stopped Heather from taking that iPod. Maybe went with Eva to go to the bathroom or even yelled from where I was sitting that she had dropped her iPod. But I didn't. For a couple of reasons.

I don't really like Eva. She's always so angry at people. I wouldn't touch her with a ten foot pole.

Plus, she was on the other team. If it was found out that I was helping the other team, my team would vote me off without a second thought. Risking my own vote for a chance to help someone one the other team that I don't even like? No thank you.

Eva had returned from her trip to the bathroom, unaware of what had happened. When she finds out, all hell will break loose.

I'm getting ahead of myself again. I glanced at my watch again. (There was not much else to do). It was 2:04. The campers all around me had bags under their eyes, but none of them would sleep. Fall asleep damnit!

DJ asked Chris if it was absolutely necessary to leave the campgrounds after we are eliminated.

"No. You can sleep here if you want. For now. Later on, you will have to leave, but I'll tell you when that moment comes."

"Oh, alright Chris." Said DJ.

I didn't understand why DJ would want to continue sleeping in the campfire pit when he could sleep in the cabins. Maybe he found it difficult to sleep on his bunk? Or maybe he was scared to sleep alone? Whatever the reason, why did I care?

"Hey Cody, you still awake bro?" I asked him.

"Yeah. You?" He clearly wasn't thinking straight.

"You wanna play a game?"

"Sure Jigsaw, what game?"

"Twenty questions?"

"Okay. You go first."

I tried to think of something that wasn't extremely difficult, but not totally simple either.

"Okay, I got it. First question?"

He pondered a bit. "Is it living?"

"No."

"Can it be felt?"

"Yes."

"Is it an emotion?"

"No."

"Is it hard? Haha. That's what she said."

I laughed at his perverted-ness, and said "No."

"So is it squishy? Okay, I need to rephrase these statements."

"Yes."

"Is it edible?"

"Yes."

"Is it spicy?"

"No."

"Is it tasty?"

"That's subjective."

"Okay, is it sweet?"

"Yes."

"Is it big?"

"Again, subjective."

"Uh…is it bigger than my fist?"

"No."

"Is it bigger than my nails?"

"Yes."

"Does it relate to Total Drama Island?"

"Yes."

"Is it marshmallows?" Darn. I thought we wouldn't get it.

"Yep, it's marshmallows."

"Alright. Me next."

"You better not be thinking about a superhero or a video game character."

"No, I won't." He paused to think. "Okay, I got it!"

I scratched my head, occasionally muttering out "hmmm" as if I was in deep thought. Then I asked him.

"Is it Gwen?"

"Dude! How'd you know?"

"Just a hunch."

"What can I say? She's just so…perfect."

"She's the voice of reason among maniacs."

"She's tough and independent. She is awesome!"

Cody was so obsessed with Gwen. It was kind of frightening.

"Cody. I know you love her but don't go overboard with this, okay?"

"Overboard? I won't have to."

Just then, Bridgette went the ground.

"We have our one-person advantage back!" Cody yelled.

Then, Izzy fell asleep.

"…and it's gone." He said.

"You spoke too soon." I told him.

"So it's nine all?"

"I believe so."

"It's been" He looked at my watch. "Eighteen hours since this thing started, and only three people have fallen asleep."

"At this rate, the challenge will last about 120 hours. One hundred and twenty hours!? I don't think I can stay awake that long."

"You forget that the likeliness that a camper falls asleep increases as time goes on."

"In that case, it should last about… one hundred hours, give or take. That's still a pretty long time."

"Wow. You're good at mental math."

"Yeah. My friends at school call me the 'walking calculator'"

"I don't know if I would want to be called that."

"I take what I get. I've been called a lot of things."

"Such as?"

"You wouldn't want to know."

"Oh, the mystery boy are we?"

"Babes love guys who are mysterious."

"I don't know why. Wouldn't you want to know everything about the person who you might be with for life?"

"It's a girl thing. How do their minds work?"

"I don't think even Einstein can figure that one out."

I glanced around. There were still 18 teenagers. Y U NO GO TO SLEEP?

Cody began nodding off. I shook him.

"Hang in there man."

We both looked at Izzy.

"How'd that crazy chick fall asleep?" Cody asked.

"This is the only state when she's tolerable."

"You keep teasing her, but I know how you really feel."

"Dude, we're just friends, no, more like acquaintances. We barely talk."

"You keep saying that, dude."

I yawned. "I don't know how much longer I can keep this up."

"Me neither. I think watching paint dry doesn't even come close to the boringness of this challenge."

"I would rather watch golf."

"I'd rather write a 10,000 word essay on Twilight."

"Whoa! That's overdoing it!" I loved reading. I just don't like writing about the books afterwards. I hated essays in general. There was no way in hell that I was writing an essay over complete garbage.

"But, the amount of words is OVER 9000!"

"Yay for overused memes." I said.

"Yeah, seriously. This is really, really, really, infinitely boring."

"Yes. I think we got that by now."

But he was right. We passed the time by talking about all the other things that we would rather be doing. I looked around. The members of both teams looked pretty similar. There was no clear leader. The number of people awake for the Killer Bass and the Screaming Gophers were the same as well: nine. Trent's favorite number.

Thinking about Trent made me look over at him. He was chatting with Gwen about some stuff. Things were going to get complicated seeing as Cody loves Gwen who in turn loves Trent.

And I'm getting ahead of myself again.

_Concentrate on the present Noah._

I'm trying to; it's just that my head is spinning with all the events that had taken place. I still couldn't believe that I was back on this island again. After eight years. Eight looooooooooong years. Tormented, harassed, threatened, bullied and humiliated. All my friends turned on me. I was left stranded, alone. No one was there to help me. If only they could realize how much I had suffered.

And despite all of the cruel things that they did to me, most of them unmentionable, I _still _wouldn't wish this challenge on them. Or any of the challenges, for that matter.

Was it because I was generous or because this island was hell incarnate? Maybe a little of both.

"I've never been outside this late before." Cody said.

"I have. My family once went on a trip to Montreal and we drove back all the way. I couldn't sleep that night because it was so cramped in that van we were in."

"I couldn't sleep once because I kept thinking the boogeyman would get me."

"Oh, the things that scare us when we're young."

"Actually that was a week ago. I pissed my pants." He said, looking ashamed.

"If it makes you feel better, I think DJ would have done the same thing."

We looked at the big guy. He had tied himself to a tree.

"You think that'll work?" He asked.

"Doubt it." I said.

I looked at my clock. 7:25 it read. I had been awake for 24 hours! But it was only 21 hours since this challenge started.

"I don't think I've ever glanced at a watch so many times."

"It's a good thing that you brought it along. It's the only thing that's keeping me from going insane."

"Knowing the time?"

"It's the glue that holds everything together. Everything revolves around it. Without time, the world would fall into chaos."

"The dinosaurs didn't measure time."

"And we all know what happened to them."

"I feel so tired. It's like I'm dead."

"Well, everyone here _does _look like zombies."

I glanced around and realized that he was right.

"This isn't a democracy anymore." He said.

"Your right, it's a Chris-tatorship."

"Yeah. I didn't think you would get it anyway."

"Get what?"

He then told me about this series called _The Walking Dead _where a group of survivors have to escape from bloodthirsty zombies.

"I'm not really into zombies, Cody."

"But you look like someone that would watch _The Big Bang Theory_."

"The massive explosion that is said to have created Earth?"

He then told me about another series about four scientists who are very genius but socially awkward and their hot next door neighbor.

"Yeah. I think we should stop talking about sitcoms now."

"You know, with the amount of differences between us, one would wonder how we're friends." He paused for a moment. "We _are _friends right?"

"Of course Cody. Why would you even doubt that?"

"At school people pretend to be my friends just so they can copy my math homework."

"They can't do that during exams."

"But they try. Oh ho, they try."

I glanced down at my watch. It was now 8:41 AM. The sun was now in the sky again. And eighteen teenagers were still awake.

"I bet you five bucks that the next person to fall asleep is a Bass." Cody said.

"You're on. I think it'll be a Gopher." We shook on it.

I feel reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally sleepy…

-X-

"Noah! Hey Noah!" Someone was shaking me. I grumbled.

"Get up Noah! Hello! Anyone in there?" Someone was knocking on my noggin.

I opened my eyes and let out a long yawn. The first thing I saw was Izzy.

"What happened?" I mumbled.

"You fell asleep you big silly." Said Ms. Crazy.

"Aw man. I fell asleep. Darn!" I cursed myself.

"That's okay. We're still neck and neck."

I saw Cody sitting on a stump nearby. I was lying on the ground. I had fallen asleep just before the 24 hour mark, just like the first time around.

"How are you still awake?" I asked him.

"I read my remaining comic books. I also imagined your voice in my head and talked to it. Lack of sleep makes you do some pretty crazy things." Amen to that.

Cody filled me in on what had happened while I was sleeping. Tyler was about to doze off when he suddenly screamed bloody murder, Chris announced that they had made it to 24 hours (So close), Chris read them some boring fairy tales (and Chef was dressed in a pink sheep suit), Owen had farted in his face (gross, but it did keep him in the challenge).

Later on, Chef began dancing around in a fairy suit sprinkling 'magical pixie dust' over the campers, causing DJ to fall asleep. The score was now tied 8-8.

It was now 6:59. Wait, now it was 7 PM. I had been sleeping for more than ten hours.

It had been exactly thirty-three hours since this challenge started. And sixteen teens were yet to fall asleep. Then, I remembered something.

"So about that bet we made…"

"Yeah?"

"I fell asleep afterwards, so I should get the money."

"What!? The deal didn't include yourself."

"I said that if a Screaming Gopher goes to sleep next, then I get five bucks. You never specified that it couldn't be _me _that went to sleep."

"Darn. Frickin loopholes." He said, handing me the money. My knowledge of the future was making me rich. First Owen and now Cody. I'll scam the lot of them! Muahahahaha!

Owen was still asleep. "Has he been sleeping since yesterday?" I asked Cody.

"Huh? Oh, no. He got up once, we talked for a while and then he went back to sleep."

"I'm surprised Bridgette and DJ are the only two to fall asleep on the Bass team."

"Me too. I thought they would all be out cold by now, but they're tough dudes. Especially Duncan."

"That guy seriously scares me."

"But not as much as Eva."

"Oh, definitely. No one even comes close to Eva's scariness."

"Not even Izzy?"

"Izzy's insane, she's not temperamental. Though I wouldn't want to be trapped in a cage with either of them."

"Trapped in a cage with two chicks! That would be awesome."

"Cody, you'd be beaten to pulp and set ablaze."

"That doesn't sound awesome."

There was some silence for a while. Awkward silence. Then Cody broke it.

"Have you ever noticed before that sleeping is like time travel?"

At first, I thought he had lost it. "Have you lost it?" I asked him.

"No. It's like time travel man. You know what time travel is right?"

He was asking this to the guy who had travelled back eight years to where it all started. Was that irony? I don't know what's considered as ironic these days.

"Yeah, I know what time travel is."

"You close your eyes for a few seconds, and then suddenly, you've travelled some hours into the future!"

"Too bad it only takes you into the future." I said, remembering when I closed my eyes and was suddenly eight years in the past.

"Still, it's pretty interesting when you think about it. Humans have been at work trying to build time machines, when we already have a natural mode of time travel that everyone already uses."

"That is interesting."

"And this brings me to another theory. That time travelers could be living among us."

I stared at him with a confused look, forgetting that _I _myself was a time traveler. It wasn't on purpose, of course, but I had still time-travelled.

"Think about it. If we assume that at some point in time, (I don't know when), but at_ some _point, humans manage to successfully build a time machine."

I nodded. I was following him.

"So, at least _one _of them would want to explore what life was like during the 21st century."

"I follow."

"So they would use the time machine to go back here, pretend that they are actually from _our _time period, and analyze our culture."

"Our culture full of crappy music and stupid acronyms such as YOLO?" I asked.

"Yep, our stupid culture."

"And the time traveler could be right here on this island. It could be me, it could be you, it could even be BOOM!" He mimed lowing his head off. I gazed at him.

"You've lost it."

"No! That line's from the Meet the Spy video from Team Fortress 2."

"Cody, you know I'm not a gamer."

"Oh yeah, forgot. So, what if you really are a time traveler?" He asked, pointing at me with that finger people point at you with.

"What if I am?" I asked. He had no idea.

"How long has it been?" He asked me after we sat in silence for a while.

I checked my watch. "It's now 8:23. It's been about thirty-four hours."

"Thirty-four hours and still so many people are awake? How is that even possible?

"I wonder the same thing."

We sat in silence for a while longer. "I have an idea!" I exclaimed.

"What?" He asked.

"It's time for our nightly chess game!"

"This time _I'm _the one who forgot." He said, going over to get the pieces.

I was black this time. The colors would alternate every other day.

"Do you want another silent game?" I asked him.

"Actually, I think we should talk this time. It would help me to not fall asleep."

"Okay then."

I had just rested for ten hours and was really fresh. Cody hadn't had any shut eye for more than around 35 hours, and when he had try to get some, Owen farted in his face. The geek made some really dumb moves which I capitalized on. I punished him for every mistake he made, and he made a lot of mistakes. This was different from yesterday, when we both made a lot of errors and failed to pounce on some of them. I sometimes let his piece escape because I didn't want to the game to end too quickly.

Near the end of our match, Izzy came up to us.

"Ooooo! What game are you playing?"

"Chess." I told her.

"That looks like fun! Can I play?"

"You can play after we're done Izzy. Now sit down and watch me pwn Noah with my skills."

"Au contraire, my friend, because you are now in checkmate."

What?" He looked at the board, and then at me. "No! It's not possible. One does not simply defeat Cody at chess."

"Too bad. I just did. We're even now."

Okay, I knew it was kind of unfair since he was super tired and I was energized, but it wasn't like I told him to stay awake for this long. A win's a win, and this win was sweet.

"GG man."

"GG." I said, shaking his hand.

"Can I play now?" Izzy asked us.

Cody looked reluctant in letting his prized possession get handled by Izzy, but he agreed due to the reason that he could brag to his friends that a hot girl used his chess set.

"You should play her Noah. Since you like her, and all."

"Then why don't you play with Gwen since you like her and all?" I shot back. That shut him up.

We arranged the pieces.

"What's that one called?"

"That's the bishop, Izzy."

"What about that one?"

"That's the knight."

"That one looks cool!"

"That's an insect." I said, flicking the bug off of the board.

"This is boring."

"But Izzy, we just started, and you haven't even moved yet."

"I'm leaving." She said, knocking the board over. All the pieces fell into the ground. Cody, who was watching us, ran over.

"Oh no, no, no, NO! What did she do to my beautiful pieces?"

We examined them.

"Luckily, nothing happened."

"It's a good thing too, or else, I would have"

"What would you have done?"

"Curse my luck and let Izzy get away scot free."

"I thought so." How could someone like Izzy appreciate the magnificent game of chess, with all the eloquence and gracefulness that it had to offer?

"Attention campers!" Man, it had been a long time since I heard Chris's voice. "It is now time for another bathroom break. Any takers?"

I looked at my watch. It was now 10:11. He was off by eleven minutes.

"Finally!" Tyler yelled, running over to Chef.

Cody stood up.

"Are you stretching?"

"No, I have to go to the bathroom."

He went over to Chef and Tyler. Geoff and Heather went with them.

I hoped Heather wouldn't try to make an alliance with him or something, but I knew that wouldn't happen. I looked around. Courtney was still walking in place, Owen was sleeping, and Izzy was trying to talk to Leshawna.

Then the loudmouth fell asleep. How does someone fall asleep while Izzy is talking to them? It makes no sense. Leshawna must have been really tired.

Cody had come back from his bathroom break. "What's new?"

"Well, Leshawna just fell asleep." I said, jerking my thumb at her.

"So we're losing again."

"Eight to seven." I told him.

"How much longer must this torture go on?"

"According to you, for one hundred hours."

"So how many more hours left?"

"About sixty five."

"Sixty-five! Add four to that and what do you get?"

"69"

He giggled. "Ha, you said sixty-nine."

"So?"

"So!? Do you know what 69 is?"

"No." He then whispered in my ear what it meant and my eyes went wide.

"You're a real pervert you know that? Where do you learn all of this stuff?"

"Urban Dictionary." He said, and then continued. "I'm bored as hell Noah. I already read all of my comic books and my DS needs to be charged. And I'm tired. Maybe I should just go to sleep…"

I shook him. "No! I am not letting you fall asleep. We're already losing."

"So what should we do then?"

We played a few rounds of chopsticks, followed by a best of 99 Rock, Paper, Scissors, which Cody won 50-38. We played the remaining eleven games for the heck of it.

Then Chris's voice sounded again.

"Attention campers that are already out, the time is now 11 o'clock." I checked my watch to make sure. "You are welcome to go back to your cabins to sleep. It is not mandatory, just a suggestion. Maclean out!"

At this, Leshawna and Bridgette went up to go to their respective cabins.

"You're not heading to our cabin?"

"No." I replied. "I have to help you stay awake."

"It's okay Noah; you can go to the cabin."

"I'm not doing that Cody. Besides, I like sitting and staring up at the night sky. That reminds me of a joke I heard."

"What joke?" Cody asked curiously.

"Okay, so it goes like this: I was lying down in my bed, looking up at the gleaming starts and the shiny moon, and then I wondered 'WHERE THE HECK DID THE ROOF GO?'"

"Haha, that's a pretty funny one."

"Meh, it's alright I guess." I tried to downplay it.

"I have this hilarious joke. You want to hear it?"

"Tell me the joke. _I'll _judge whether or not it's hilarious."

He then began to tell his joke. "It's kind of long, and dirty, but here goes: A boy was wondering what politics was. His dad tells him that since the father manages money within the family, he should be known as 'Capitalism'. The boy's mother set the rules for the household, so she should be known as 'Government'. They all cater to the boy's needs, so he is the 'People'. The boy's baby brother should be called 'The Future'. And their maid servant should be called 'The Working Class'. The father asks the boy if he understands. The boy does not and walks away confused."

At this point, Cody stopped and asked me if I was following.

"Yes, I'm following, but it's kind of confusing though."

"I'm almost done. Anyway, the boy goes to bed that night thinking about what his father had said. He hears his baby brother crying in the crib next to him, and goes to check on him, only to find out that he had soiled his diaper. He goes to his parent's room to tell them, but his mother is sound asleep. He then goes to the servant's room to wake her, only to find his father sleeping with the maid servant. He knocks on the door a couple of times. No one answers so he goes back to bed."

"This joke is really long. And it's not getting to the point anytime soon."

"The punchline's almost coming up! So, the next day, the boy goes up to his dad and says that he understands politics now. The dad asks the boy to explain it to him, to which the boy said"

Cody then cleared his throat.

"Capitalism screws The Working Class while the Government sleeps, the People are ignored and The Future is full of crap."

I laughed for about a minute after hearing that one, then I wiped a tear away from my eye, "That was pretty accurate." I said.

"I think it's the funniest joke I ever heard." He said.

I thought about the events of the day. I had succumbed to the drug known as sleep. So had Izzy, Leshawna, DJ, and Bridgette. My friend looked worn out. Dark bags had formed under his eyes. How much longer could he keep this up?

* * *

Longest chapter to date. And most of it wasn't even cannon. Writing about people sleep is making _me _sleepy. /Yawns/


	8. Sleep is for the Weak

Total Drama Island © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

* * *

_**Total Drama Redemption**_

**Day Six (06)**

The time is currently 1:23.

I had dozed off for about an hour.

I looked at Cody. He was still awake.

"Sorry I nodded off there. I'm still pretty tired."

"Huh? I didn't even notice that you dozed off."

He was staring off at the moon. We were silent for a while."

"So how long has it been?"

"I don't know _you're_ the 'Walking Calculator'"

He was then about to count by himself, when I stopped him. "Just messing with you bud."

I paused a while to calculate. "Thirty-nine hours."

"I don't even know what the difference between day and night is anymore."

"Night's the one with the stars."

"Oooooooooooooooh." His brain was tired. He _clearly _wasn't thinking clearly.

Lack of sleep can be dangerous to a person's health. At one point, I was really worried about Cody. But I knew that he could manage. He was a fighter.

"Two plus two is three, right?"

Like I said, he was a fighter.

"Hey Cody, can you name all of the campers here?" I said, trying to test his brain.

He stared at me. "So you're Noah, right?"

"Yeah."

"And I'm Cody."

"That's what I gather."

"And that's Gwen right?"

"Yeah." He had to question what his crush looked like.

He paused for a while and tapped his chin. "So I know that there's a Heather and Izzy. I just don't know where they are."

"That's Heather and that's Izzy."

"You got them switched."

"Aw man. Okay. Who were the other campers? Oh yeah, Lindsay!" He looked around.

"That one."

"You looked at her rack, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

Well, it was her defining feature. What the hell am I saying? Of course Lindsay's defining feature was her stupidity.

We sat in silence for a while. We had pretty much exhausted all of the things that we could talk about. All of the _interesting _things anyway.

Besides, fatigue was affecting him. I didn't want to wear him out with non-stop chatter.

Except something important had happened.

"Lindsay and Beth just fell asleep."

"Cool."

"No Cody, that's _not _cool. Two people on our team fell asleep."

"So are we losing?"

I looked over at the Killer Bass. Katie, Sadie, Harold and Tyler were all asleep. When did _they _fall asleep? I guess I wasn't paying attention.

"No. The scores are tied four to four."

"Wow. I thought I'd be sleeping by now. Didn't think I'd make it this far."

For some reason, I feel like something bizarre happens right about now. I think it involves Owen. I looked over at the big guy, and immediately shielded my eyes.

Owen had stripped. He was wearing nothing, I repeat, _nothing. _And he was slowly trudging along with his eyes closed. He walked past Gwen and Trent, who were talking. Their eyes widened when they saw the fully naked Owen.

"We have a nude sleepwalker on the lose!" Chris yelled over his megaphone. Immediately, everyone who was awake looked at Owen, and then wished that they hadn't done so.

I shuddered as Owen walked out of the campfire pit and into the forest.

"Oh man, why couldn't Owen have been a girl?" Cody asked.

"We are now forty hours into this challenge! It's time for another bathroom break."

But no one stood up. Everyone was much too tired.

"Oh well, suit yourself." Chris said over the megaphone.

I went up to talk to him. "Um, Chris, aren't you gonna do something about Owen?"

"You mean try to stop a three –hundred pound naked sleepwalker?"

"Why do I even bother?" I said, going back to sit next to Cody.

Izzy then came up to us. "I have something that will help Cody stay awake!"

"What?" I asked.

"I brought playing cards!" She said, holding the deck of fifty-six in her hand.

"So what should we play?"

"How about speed?"

"Izzy, that game ends pretty quickly. Not to mention only two people can play it."

"What about hearts?"

"We need four people to play that."

"Then I'll just ask someone to join." She was about to head off, when I pulled her back.

"We need to play something that's long and drawn out, but can also be played by three people."

"War." Cody said. Maybe he had a little juice left in his brain after all.

"That's perfect, Cody."  
"But what do we do about the Jokers?" Izzy asked.

"They should be the highest card." I said.

"They should be discarded." Cody said.

"Hmmm. I know!" Izzy said. "The Joker should always tie with the highest of the other two cards. That way, there are more wars."

"I guess." I said.

"That sounds fair." Said Cody.

Izzy began shuffling the cards. Then she dealt them. I had gotten the least amount of cards (eighteen) while Cody and Izzy both had 19.

I put down a Queen, Izzy played a Seven and Cody played a Nine. I grabbed the cards. "This is the first of many losses that you will suffer."

"Oh we'll see about that." Cody said.

Izzy played a King, I played a Two, and Cody played an Eight. "Haha, score one for the Izzy." She said, picking up the cards.

I played a Ten, Izzy played a Ten, and Cody played a Jack.

"Aw man, it was so close to being tied." Said Izzy as Cody picked up the cards.

Then, we all played an Ace.

"What are the odds?" I asked.

"One out of 166320." Cody answered. Wow. His brain could do math even in this tired state.

We placed three cards face down, and then played our fourth card face up. I had a Seven, Cody had a King, and Izzy had a Jack.

"Haha. I got this." Cody said, picking up the fifteen cards.

I played a Joker, Izzy played a Nine, and Cody played a Four.

Izzy and I both declared war and flipped over our fourth card. I had a Three and Izzy had a Two.

"Give it to me." I said.

"That's what she said."

I groaned and picked up the cards.

"Sorry, my brain's wired like that."

We continued. I played a Five, Izzy and Cody both played Sixes.

Izzy won the draw Queen to Two.

I played and Ace. Izzy played a Two, as did Cody.

"Two's are pretty meaningless." I said.

"At least we know who has the other Ace now." Said Izzy.

Izzy played an Eight, I played a Six, and Cody played a Joker.

This time Cody won the draw Jack to Three.

I played a Two, Cody played a Nine, and Izzy played a Seven.

Cody picked up the cards quietly.

Cody played another Nine, I played a King, and Izzy played a Ten.

"The strongest card last time around is the weakest one this time." I noted.

I played a Seven, and so did Izzy and Cody.

We slapped down three cards and flipped over our fourth card. All three were Queens.

"It's time for double war." Said Izzy.

Again, we slapped down three cards. Cody's was a Two. Izzy had A Six and I had a Joker.

"Wow. Triple war. That's super rare." I said.

We again played three cards face down and flipped a fourth. I had a Four. Izzy had a Three.

"Haha. 23 cards are all mine!" I said, picking up almost half the deck.

I played a Seven, Izzy played an Ace, and Cody played a Ten.

"Hey, how'd you get an Ace? I thought Cody had three and I had one?" I questioned.

"Must have got it when I won a war with him." Izzy said, collecting the three cards.

We continued. I played a Five, Cody played a Two and Izzy played a Seven.

Izzy collected the cards again.

She played a Jack, I played a Ten and Cody slapped down a card so hard a 'thud' could be heard.

"What'd you do that for?" I asked him.

He removed his hand from the card, which turned out to be an Eight.

"Aw man, I thought the louder you slapped down the card, the higher the value."

"This isn't ERS dude."

I played a Seven, Cody played an Ace, but so did Izzy. Izzy won when she played a King to Cody's Jack.

"So who has the Aces now?" He asked.

'I've lost track." I replied.

Then I played an Ace. Izzy played a Joker and Cody played a Ten.

"That Ace is mine Noah!" Izzy growled, playing a King after she placed down three cards.

I flipped over my card to reveal another Ace. "I don't think so, I said, picking up the cards."

Cody played a Three, I played a Four, and Izzy played a Five.

"Well, I'm all out." Cody said. Man, you guys are good."

"Cody, War is a game of chance, not skill."

He looked over at Gwen and Trent talking. "I'm gonna go talk to Gwen now, so if you'll excuse me." He got up and went over to Gwen.

Izzy and I continued to play War.

I slapped down a Nine, and Izzy played a Seven.

"I've already got rid of one of you guys. Now it's time to get rid of the other." I said, grinning evilly.

"Never!" Izzy shouted.

We kept playing for a while. A long while.

"This is taking so long it's not even fun anymore." I said.

"Izzy agrees."

"So who won?" She asked after about a minute of silence.

I looked at the cards I was holding, and then at hers. I had a lot more than her.

"Well I guess you win since the deck is yours." I said. I didn't want to deal with Izzy's pouting afterwards if she lost.

"Yeah! Haha! Take that suckers! Izzy just kicked your sorry butts!"

"Whatever." I mumbled and walked away.

I checked the time. It was 3 o'clock. Our game had lasted about an hour.

That's what I love and hate about War: it takes for frickin ever to finish.

Cody was actually talking with Gwen and Trent. I had expected Gwen to kick him out by now, but I guess she and Trent were pretty bored by themselves.

Owen was nowhere to be seen. Leshawna was at the cabins. Heather was still awake. Maybe I could talk to her.

What am I saying?

I decided not to interrupt Cody, and quietly watched him conversing with Gwen and Trent.

My eyes hurt. Maybe I should close them for a little bit…

-X-

…Aaaaaaaaaand I fell asleep.

Again.

I checked my watch. It was 7:42 in the morning and the sun was up in the sky.

Cody was still awake.

It had been 45 hours since this whole thing started.

Then Izzy came up to me.

"I have something that you might like." She said.

"What could it possibly be?" I asked her and wondered.

"This!" She pulled out a novel she was holding behind her back up till now.

"_MOBY DICK!" _I exclaimed. "Gimme, gimme, gimme, GIMME!" I said, reaching for the book. All of my books had already been read.

She pulled it away. "On one condition Noah."

"What?"

"You have to read it to me."

I sighed. "Alright, fine. Whatever. Give me the book." She handed it to me.

I sat on a stump as she sat on the ground, her legs crossed. And I began to read.

"Call me Ishmael…"

I had read about fifty pages of the book to Izzy, who was listening attentively, much to my surprise.

Cody walked over.

"Hey, what book you reading?"

"_Moby Dick_"

"Moby what?"

"_Moby Dick_"

"Didn't quite hear that."

"_Moby Dick!" _I repeated, only louder this time.

"Haha. Moby _Dick!"_ He laughed.

"Laugh if you want, but it's one of the masterpieces of our time."

"Ignore him Noah. I want to know what happens."

Cody looked annoyed that I had a girl sticking up for me.

"I'm gonna go talk to Gwen." He muttered, and headed off.

I continued with the story. "Savage though he was, and hideously marred about the face- at least to my taste- his countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable…"

There were no more interruptions as I finished reading the book.

"The monster whale lives! Good ending!" Izzy yelled.

I looked at my watch. More than four hours had passed. It was now 11:58. Reading Izzy the story had helped time fly by.

Then someone else took a tumble. It was Geoff.

"The sandman claims another victim!" Izzy said.

"So, the party boy has crashed."

Just then, Tyler got up. "Aw man, this thing is still going on?"

"Yes. Yes it is." Chris said.

Tyler asked him if he could go back to the cabins.

"Yeah. You're out. You can pretty much do whatever you want to do."

The jock then headed out of the campfire pit.

The Screaming Gophers were now leading 4-3.

Izzy looked at Cody. "Do you think he'll make it to the end?" She asked me.

"How would I know? It's not like I'm from the future or anything."

We laughed and talked for some more time. She told me that she was on the run from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The first time around, I thought this was complete and utter bull, but now I knew it was true.

"So what'd you do to make them come after you?"

"I caused this accident while I was in the reserves. Big explosion and all. You should have seen it. It was huge! Like, massively enormous. I don't think I had ever seen an explosion so large in my entire life…"

She kept rambling on and on.

"Forgive me for asking." I muttered to myself as I pretended to be interested.

We kept talking. Or rather, _she _kept talking and I faked interest. Then Gwen spoke up.

"Look at him." She was referring to Justin. "He's like a statue. He hasn't moved in over ... fifty hours!" Gwen then called out to him, as Trent made yipping noises. Why he was doing that, I haven't the faintest idea.

"Amazing. Look at the concentration." Gwen said. She then nudged Justin, who opened his eyes. He was actually asleep the whole time!

"His eyelids are painted, I saw it!" Eva said.

This got Chris's attention. "Shut up! Oh, I've gotta see this!" He walked over to Justin.

He stared at the model for a while. "That is so freakin cool, but, you're still out dude."

Justin walked over to the cabins. Yeah, your good looks didn't help you _this _time did they, pretty boy?

"I dated him once, you know?" Izzy told me.

"You did?"

She then started rambling again.

_Great, Noah. You just HAD to ask._

I remembered at this point in the contest, Owen was sleeping with the fishes. Haha, good one.

Justin being out reminded me that I had calculated wrong. Once again, I had failed to take him into account as he didn't move a muscle for the entire challenge. He was just standing perfectly still in front of the campfire for the entire time until he was out. The Gophers still held the advantage four-three.

Heather, Gwen, Trent and Cody were awake for our side. Eva, Duncan and Courtney were still awake for their side.

I looked at my watch. It was now 2:30. The same time that my school would have ended. I remembered that Chris had called for a bathroom break about half an hour ago, but only Courtney had to go.

"Hey, Izzy, where'd you get this novel?" I asked her, holding up _Moby Dick._

"Oh that thing? I got it from Courtney's bag in her cabin."

"You crazy ingrate! We're not allowed to go into the other team's cabins! It's against the rules."

"There are rules?"

"Izzy, you have to return this right now!"

"Why?"

"Because you stole it from Courtney!"

"I didn't steal it. I just borrowed it without asking."

"Well now you have to return it without her knowing."

"Sorry Noah, but I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because the person that touched it last has to return it. Duh."

"Are you kidding me?"

"What's the matter, are you chicken?"

"You know, that's a common misconception. Chickens are actually very aggressive birds, dangerous when provoked."

She ignored me and starter flapping her arms like a chicken, squawking along with it.

"Okay, fine. I'll return it. Sheesh. You're so annoying sometimes, you know that?"

"I know." She said smugly, and walked away.

Great, now I've got to return this thing. I decided to wait for a while and decide how to do this. While doing so, I fell asleep.

I woke up at 7 PM. I was falling asleep at short intervals. This challenge had really thrown me off of my regular sleep cycle.

Cody was still awake. He was now talking with Izzy. I guess he had talked with me enough for a while. _Moby Dick _was still in my hand.

Since there was nothing better to do, I took a one hour nap, and then went up to Cody.

"It's time."

"For what?" He forgot again.

"Chess."

"Oh yeah, that. How do you keep remembering?"

"Because I want to break this tie."

We set up the pieces. He was still as tired as ever, and I was fresh.

"So, the scores are 4-3."

"But we've only played five games."

"I was talking about this challenge. You, Heather, Gwen and Trent are awake for our team while Courtney, Duncan and Eva are still awake for their team."

"I hope I can last till the end."

"I do too."

We played a few moves quietly. He was losing. Badly.

"So what were you talking about with Gwen and Trent?"

"Huh? Oh, just some trivial stuff I guess. I shared some stories and so did they. Did you know that Gwen wants to be a writer when she grows up?"

"No."

"It's true. She told me. Man, this feels so great. I was always so shy to talk to girls that I liked, but doing this has really boosted my self-confidence."

"Check."

"Never!"

We played for a while, and then he said "Perpetual check."

"What?" Asked Izzy. She had been watching the whole time?

"Have you been watching the whole time?"

"Yep. What's perpetual check?"

"I thought you said this was boring?"

"There's nothing else to do."

"As the lady was wondering, perpetual check is when the king gets checked three times in a row by the same move."

I had not been paying attention to the board, and had perpetually checked him. He was paying attention.

"So even in this state, you still pay attention to perpetual checks?"

"I've been playing this game for quite a while now. Over the years, I've learned to recognize a lot of things."

It was now 9:01. It was getting late.

"Hey Cody, I have to go… do something, so can you excuse me for a while?"

"Sure thing. No prob."

"Thanks." I grabbed _Moby Dick _and headed to the cabins. Normally, I would head to my cabin. But this time, I went to the Bass cabin. The _girl's _side of the Bass cabin.

_Curse you Izzy_

I opened the door gently. It creaked. I peeked inside. Bridgette, Katie and Sadie were asleep. The other two girls were still doing the challenge.

I opened the door just enough to slip through. I looked around.

Man, I hope Courtney or Eva don't see me here, or else I'm as good as dead.

I tried to tip toe, but the floor creaked with every step I took. Then Katie said something. "You'll always be my BFFFL." I quickly turned around. She was asleep. Phew.

I headed over to Courtney's bag. Inside was a copy of _Julius Caesar_.

_Noah, you came here to return a book not to take one you idiot._

I put _Moby Dick. _Inside the bag and was about to leave.

Then Bridgette got up.

"Oh hi, Noah."

Oh sh-. I faintly waved, not knowing what to do. She went back to bed.

That was _way_ too close for comfort. I quickly tiptoed out of the cabin and had gone a few yards away when I realized that I had forgot to close the door.

_Good thing, or else I would have been dead meat._

I went back, gently closed the door and ran the hell away from that place.

I went back to the campfire pit.

"Idday ouyay eturnray ethay ookbay?"

It took me a while, but I noticed that she was talking in Pig Latin.

"esyay."

"Don't you feel like a spy now?"

"No. I feel like a person who was very lucky to escape with his life."

"Which would be a spy."

"I'm pretty tired now so can you please leave me alone?"

"Whatever you say, Noah!"

I went over to Cody. "You've got this man. No problem at all." I patted him on the back, and then fell to the ground in a deep slumber.

* * *

As you can see, this challenge will span multiple chapters. In other words, "This might take a while."


	9. This Challenge Is Still Going On?

Okay, so I know this challenge is pretty darn boring and slow-paced. Honestly, it's just people trying to stay awake while some side action goes on. Just bear with me for a while? Please?

Total Drama Island © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

* * *

_**Total Drama Redemption**_

**Day Seven (07)**

It was day four of The Awake-a-thon.

The seven teens that were awake yesterday were still awake today: Cody, Gwen, Trent, Courtney, Eva, Duncan and Heather.

I looked at my watch. It was now 7:34 AM.

The awake-a-thon had lasted for 69 hours and counting.

Sixty-nine.

Cody, you are one perverted guy.

DJ had left to go to the cabins, Owen was nowhere to be found and Courtney was still moving in place. I wondered how long she could keep this up.

I went over to Cody.

"Oh, hi dude. How you doing?" He asked.

"I should ask you that. You haven't slept in four days."

"It feels kind of weird. My eyes keep telling me to sleep but my heart says that I can't succumb. I have to help my team win this. We won't go down without a fight!"

"So who do you think will be the next to fall on the Bass side?"

"Courtney. She's not as tough as the other two, and I think she's wearing herself out by walking in place."

"Still, I'm surprised she lasted this long."

"I guess she wanted to prove herself to her team. She was almost out last time. I don't think she can afford to slip up for two challenges in a row."

"True. But I still think she'll be the next to go." I didn't think it, I _knew _it.

"Hey you! Get over here!"

I turned to see who the voice was. At first I assumed it was Izzy, but then OH SH-.

It was Bridgette.

I nervously walked over.

_Please don't let it be about what I think it's going to be about_

"I saw you in my cabin last night." Oh fu-.

"What?" I asked.

"You were in my cabin. In my dream."

"Huh?" Now I _really _didn't understand what she was talking about.

"I had a dream when you were in my cabin. Do you have any idea why?"

"Oh, a _dream? _That's _exactly _what it was. A dream. Yep, totally a figment of your imagination."

"So do you know why?" The surfer asked.

I tried to think of something. "Well, studies show that when you haven't gone to sleep for over your necessary sleep time, you might dream about crazy things, such as people you know sneaking into your house, or in his case, your cabin." Complete and total BS. Studies also indicate that adding 'studies show' before a sentence makes it more believable.

"Well that explains it."

Since I had earned my reputation as a book-smart person, she believed me. Good thing too, or else I would have most likely been disqualified.

I walked off. That was a close call.

"Dude. How do you do it man?" Cody asked me.

"Do what?" I asked him back.

"First Izzy and now Bridgette, what's your secret bro? You gotta tell me."

"Okay. I'll tell you." He looked over joyed.

"The first step is to not assume that every girl I talk to is my crush!"

"But she wanted to talk to you. Why?"

"I don't know. I've barely known her. We're on different teams and we've never talked before."

"There has to be a reason."

"No reason." I said, nervously.

"You're hiding something Noah, and I'm getting to the bottom of it."

"Good luck, Sherlock." I said smugly.

Was it weird that I was talking about luck on the _seventh _day? Seven is considered to be a lucky number in Japan, and had now extended to most of the world.

"Fine then, if you won't tell me, I know someone that will."

"Who?"

"Izzy." He said, heading over to talk to the redhead.

"What? No! Izzy doesn't know diddly squat about this."

"Then why are you getting so defensive?"

I sighed. "Alright, I'll tell you."

I then proceeded to spill the beans about what had happened last night. I had snuck into the girl's cabin to return _Moby Dick_, which Izzy had stolen. I had put in in Courtney's bag and was about to leave when Bridgette arose, said hi to me and then went back to sleep. I then fled the place.

"I can't believe it."

"What?"

"You mean to tell me that you went through all that trouble just to return a stupid novel, and you didn't even grab any undergarments?"

I slapped him on the back of his head.  
"First of all, that's not a _stupid _novel; it is _Moby Dick, _one of the greatest books of the of all, I didn't know what would happen if Courtney caught me in there, or worse. Eva. And I sure as hell didn't want to find out."

"You're just a scaredy-cat." He said, yawning. "I bet I could have" He never finished that sentence because he fell to the ground. The dude was as tired as, well, a person who was super tired.

I didn't know what to do. Should I wake him? He had just gone to sleep. I thought it best if I let him slumber.

The scores were even yet again.

I decided to take a little nap as well.

-X-

Well that was refreshing. It was now 11 AM.

Cody was still asleep. My stomach rumbled.

I had forgotten completely about food for the entirety of the challenge. I guess I stuffed myself so much on that turkey lunch that my body wasn't absolutely hungry until now.

I went over to the Mess Hall. To my luck, Chef was serving food. My body was really hungry. I grabbed a tray, asked for an extra scoop and then sat at the table and began gobbling down.

Everyone else looked weirded out by my actions (Katie, Sadie, Leshawna, Geoff and Tyler), but I didn't care. I was hungry and I could care less that it was brown slop that I was so voraciously wolfing down.

After a while, people began to attend to their own business.

I was eating like Owen would.

Where was Owen? He was probably still sleepwalking somewhere on the island.

Once my appetite had died down, which took quite a while, I returned back to the campfire pit. There really wasn't much else to do but sit and watch the final six campers.

I had been at the Cafeteria for about two hours. 75 hours had now gone by.

Izzy, who had been sleeping up till now, woke up and came over to me.

"You wanna play cards?"

"Yeah, but not War. That takes forever."

"Agreed."

We played a few rounds of Speed, and then some rounds of Egyptian Rat Screw (E.R.S.). I devised a way that we could play Uno with regular playing cards. The four colors in Uno were the four suits. Kings are Draw Twos, Queens are Skips, Jacks are Reverses and Aces are Wilds. Jokers are Wild Draw Fours. Every other card was the face value.

We played Uno for a while, and then Izzy suggested that we play Strip Poker. I said that was taking it too far and we actually played War for a while, but then it got boring so we stopped playing and when separate ways.

Playing cards had caused five hours to go by and we were now eighty hours into the challenge.

"It's time for another bathroom break campers!"

Courtney got up to go.

Cody was still sleeping. He had been for ten hours. He was awake for four days. I decided not to disturb him.

Courtney came back from her bathroom break, and plopped down on the ground. She was out cold.

Gophers lead 3-2.

Duncan and Eva were talking about something. As where Trent and Gwen. Heather was the odd man-or rather, the odd _woman_ out.

Geoff came back to the campfire pit. Duncan called him over and asked him to do something. Geoff nodded his head and headed off to the cabins.

I was still feeling somewhat drowsy, so I dozed off to sleep.

-X-

The dream I had was… weird, to say the least.

I was wearing swim shorts. I was at the beach. The waves were gently flowing. Cody was there too. He was also wearing swim shorts.

He leaned over and kissed me. On the mouth.

Why does this feel real? I opened my eyes to see what was happen.

I had been kissing someone.

It was Izzy. Her eyes then opened.

At this point, I did what any respectable gentleman in a situation such as mine would have done.

I got up, screamed my lungs off and bolted as fast as I could to the bathroom.

I looked at myself in the mirror.

_What the hell Noah?_

I was sleeping. It's not my fault! Right?

_Seriously bro, what the hell?_

How did this happen? Did Izzy come and sleep next to me?

At least it wasn't Cody this time right?

_Stop trying to justify this._

Yeah. I'm pretty much dead.

I quit talking to myself and left the bathroom. I returned to the campfire pit.

_Please don't let her be there._

She wasn't, luckily for me.

Chris was holding a cup of coffee in his hand. He was torturing the ones who were awake.

He then made an announcement. "Alright. You five stay with me. The rest of you go and get a shower. For heaven's sakes, you stink!"

Harold willingly complied, covering the spot where he peed his pants while running to the shower.

"Maybe he saw the boogeyman." I whispered to Cody, who was now next to me.

"Hey Chris, can we stick around for a bit? I want to watch." He asked.

"Um, sure. Just stay outside the campfire pit."

We walked outside of the pit. Some other campers stayed behind as well, while others were too tired to watch.

"Only five left. This should be close." He said.

"Let's see who wins." I said.

It was now 9 o'clock in the night.

"You forgot this." Said Izzy. She was holding Cody's chess set.

Wait! Izzy was here? Oh crap.

"Let's play." He said.

"Huh? Oh, alright." I was still thinking about what had happened earlier.

But Izzy then left us alone, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

While all of this was happening, Chris was getting ready to make things more difficult for the remaining five. As if things weren't tough enough already.

"The History of Canada. A pop-up book. Chapter One: The Beaver. National symbol and a 'dam' fine hat."

The five all groaned at Chris's 'joke' and so did I.

"Oh God, it's like I'm in history class!" Cody yelled.

"It's your turn." I told him.

He moved his pawn.

We played chess nearby the campfire pit while listening to Chris's narration. From time to time, we would check to see if any of the five campers had gone to sleep. None of them had, so far.

We kept playing for some more time, trying to multitask. Chris's monotone was starting to bore me.

Then I noticed the board. Oh man, I was in a really bad position. Cody had two knights, a bishop, six pawns, two rooks and a queen. Whereas I had seven pawns, one knight, no bishops, one rook and a queen. I was down by a lot.

It was now that I began concentrating. I also think that his attention got diverted to the sleeping challenge, because he began making some more mistakes than he was up till now.

I had somewhat managed to turn the tide. Then Cody played his A-game. Up till the moment when he let his guard down…

"Stalemate." I told him.

"No way!" He exclaimed. "But I had the advantage the whole time."

"But you misused it and squandered it. With great power comes great responsibility."

"Aw man, I totally had that."

"And you let it slip through your fingers."

He kept grumbling.

"How does it feel when _you're _the person that should have won?"

Finally. This was the first time that he had an advantage and blew it. It had managed to climb out of the massive hole that I had dug myself into. Maybe I'm overreacting for a chess game, but that dude had already stayed awake longer than me for this challenge. There was no way I was letting him beat me at chess as well.

We looked at the five campers, who were still awake. Then Cody spoke up.

"I'm starving."

"Let's go eat dinner." I said.

The campers that were out but still at the pit got up and began to leave.

We headed over to the Main Lodge, where everyone excluding the campers who were awake, was present. Except for Owen.

Cody was wolfing down his food similar to the way that I had.

I was still somewhat hungry, but not as hungry as I was that afternoon and _definitely _not as much as Cody.

We finished our dinners, and headed back to the pit to see what was happening. Nothing much had changed. We watched for a while. It was now 11:03. 85 hours had passed.

"I'm pretty tired." I said.

"Me too. Let's hope the challenge doesn't end while we're asleep."

We headed back to our cabins. I set my alarm clock to six o'clock, figuring seven hours of sleep would be enough.

"Hey, do you have any idea where Owen is?" Cody asked.

"Not in the slightest."

"Oh well, I guess he'll show up sooner or later."

_Hopefully he won't show up in the nude._

I'll admit, I felt pretty guilty about sleeping in a bed while three of my teammates had to suffer outside on that campfire.

But, I shook the feeling off and fell into a cozy sleep.

* * *

Shorter chapter because I didn't really have much to work with here. Thanks for bearing with me so far.


	10. Catch Some Z's

Total Drama Island © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

* * *

_**Total Drama Redemption**_

**Day Eight (08)**

My alarm rang at 6 AM, just like I planned it to.

Cody stirred in his bed.

"Come on man, wake up." I said, shaking him vigorously.

"But why?" He grumbled.

"We have to go watch the Awake-a-thon. Come on, let's go."

"Are you sure that that thing still going on?"

I looked at our cabin Trent was nowhere to be found.

"Well, Trent isn't here so I guess he's still competing."

"Alright, let's go." Said Cody, now fully awake. "It's been a week dude!"

I had just noticed. "We lasted one week. Let's hope we last another."

We got up, quickly brushed our teeth and went over to the campfire pit. Just as I had thought, Trent was still there.

Heather and Eva were both asleep. Chris was still narrating the history book to the remaining three.

"And this event led to Canadian participation in World War I. Although the role was a small one, Canada still contributed to the Allied Victory…"

He kept going on, with that monotone voice of his not letting up.

"This book is making me sleepy." Cody mumbled.

Lindsay noticed us.

"Hi Norm, hi Cory." She said.

"It's _Noah." _I told her.

"Hey, did you see what happened while we were sleeping?" Cody asked, ignoring that Lindsay had got his name wrong.

"Yeah. Everett fell asleep during the first chapter, and Hannah slept soon after."

"She means Eva and Heather." I informed Cody.

"Oh."

Chris continued on.

And on.

And on.

And on.

I checked my watch. It was now 9 AM. It had been 95 hours.

Then Trent fell.

"And another on bites the dust." Cody said.

"So it's down to Gwen and Duncan."

"Gwen's got this for sure."

"No way. Duncan will crush Gwen."

We turned to see who had said this, though we could recognize by the voice that it was Courtney.

"Why? Do you like him?" Cody asked.

"What? No? Ew!" She exclaimed.

For the next hour, a crowd gathered around the campfire pit. There were murmurs about who would finally win this super long challenge.

And then Owen came over. He was fully dressed, but his clothes were covered with dirt, twigs and leaves.

"Dude, where the heck were you?" I asked him.

"Is this the real life?" He asked, confused.

"Is this just fantasy?" Cody added.

"Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality." Harold continued.

We then sang the rest of "Bohemian Rhapsody".

"Nothing really matters to me." Cody finished off.

The Killer Bass and Screaming Gophers had bonded over something.

"Best song ever!" Geoff said.

"No, 'Stairway to Heaven' is." Said Beth.

We then started fighting over which song was better

And thus, the bond was broken.

"I think 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' is the best song." Said Lindsay

"No!" We all yelled at the blonde and continued arguing.

Our argument had lasted for about an hour, and there never was a clear decision for best song as more and more songs kept getting thrown into the argument.

Then Chef walked over to us.

"You maggots are getting too dang close. Back it up a little." He said, running 'Caution' tape all around the campfire pit.

"Why are you doing that?" DJ asked.

"Chris didn't want any noise to interfere with the final two. And you guys are making a hell of noise, so SHUT THE HECK UP or I won't let you watch anymore!"

After that, we were all silent. This was getting pretty boring.

I got up. "Okay, I like watching people try to stay awake as much as the next guy, but I'm gonna go eat now."

Some people followed me, but most stayed behind. I went to the Cafeteria and checked my watch. It was now 12:43 PM.

More than ninety-eight hours had gone by.

I was the last one to leave the cafeteria. I went back to the campfire pit, where both campers were still awake.

Some people were taking bets on who would win. Maybe I should wager too?

_Um, you do know that's unfair, right?_

Shut up brain.

I bet ten dollars that Gwen would win. I didn't want to wage too much and arouse suspicion.

"You're on, man." DJ said.

Chef Hatchet came back over to us.

"I thought I told you guys to shut up! If I hear one more peep, then you're all gonna get kicked out!" He yelled at us.

We nodded our heads in fear and watched the challenge in silence for some time. Then our silence was broken.

"Gwen, Duncan, congratulations on making it to a hundred hours!"

Wow, a hundred hours without sleep? I couldn't do that if I tried.

"It's time for a bathroom break. Any takers?" Chris asked the final two.

"I've held it this long sweetheart. I could go all day." Said the punk.

"Yeah, but can you hold it for another _ten _chapters?" Asked the Goth.

Duncan decided to go to the bathroom as Chef followed him.

"That dude is sooooooo gonna win this thing." Tyler said.

"In your dreams." I said.

Back at the pit, Gwen groaned.

How much longer could she last?

We waited for Duncan to get back. It was taking a while.

"Where is he?" Asked an annoyed Courtney.

Just then, Chef handed a paper to Chris. The host read it, and then spoke into the megaphone.

"And we have news." All of our ears perked at this. "It looks like Duncan's taken a dive on the can. Which means the official winner of the Awake-a-thon is… Gwen! The Screaming Gophers win!"

At 2:07 on the fifth day, after 100 hours and 7 minutes, the Awake-a-thon had finally come to an end.

Gwen then fell to the ground exhausted as the Screaming Gophers showed why they had 'screaming' in their name by breaking the sound barrier. Cody cheered the loudest.

"Well, you know what they say" I told him. "You snooze, you lose."

After the cheers had died down, Cody began to sing. What's with all the Queen songs?

"We are the champions, my friends." He air-guitared the tone.

"And we'll keep on fightin' till the end."

"We are the champions, we are the champions." All the Gophers sang.

"No time for losers." We all pointed at the Killer Bass.

"Cause we are the champions, of the world!"

Chris spoke up again.  
"Killer Bass, I'll be seeing you at the marshmallow ceremony, which is to be held at 6 PM. It's time for you guys to vote someone off."

The Killer Bass slumped and walked off, cursing themselves, while the Screaming Gophers laughed our butts off.

Gwen was still sleeping in the campfire pit. We all walked over, hoisted her up and carried her off into the girl's cabin, except before we entered the cabin, the Gopher girls shooed us off and carried Gwen in by themselves.

"What's so secret that they can't let us in?" Cody asked.

"They want some privacy. Come on, let's go to our cabin. Owen, Cody and I were about to walk inside, we noticed Eva trashing the Bass cabin.

"Where is my MP3 player?" The fitness buff roared in rage, tossing items out the window.

"It's like 'Bass Trek II: The Wrath of Eva' out there." Cody whispered to me.

I chuckled.

"First they lose the challenge, and then their cabin gets trashed." Owen said.

"Let's just be thankful that she's not on _our _team." I said, as we walked inside. We would have stuck around a bit longer, except we were afraid that she might notice.

Trent was sleeping and Justin was looking at himself in the mirror.

We listened to her tirade from the safety of our own cabin, when suddenly, the noise died down.

"Why'd it get so quiet?" Cody asked.

"I guess she found her iPod." I answered, even though I knew full well what had _actually _happened.

We took a short nap and then went over to the Mess Hall to watch the Bass discuss who they were going to vote off. Tonight's elimination would start earlier than the last one, which took place at approximately 9 PM.

I sat in the Main Lodge. Everyone was there except for Gwen, Duncan and Trent.

"Why isn't Duncan here?" Courtney asked.

"We tried to bring him, but he was too beat. He also threatened us. Dude's pretty frightening when he's pissed off." Geoff said.

"Amen to that." I whispered to Cody.

The Killer Bass continued, listing off the possible targets and why they should be voted off. Bridgette had fallen asleep first, DJ hadn't done well in either of the previous two challenges, and so on and so forth.

Eva cried out in rage when her name was mentioned and began throwing a fit.

And by 'fit', I mean she _actually _tossed things around in the Mess Hall. Everyone quickly cleared out, not wanting to deal with an enraged Eva.

I checked my watch again. It was no 5 PM. There was now one hour left until the elimination ceremony.

I hadn't made a confessional in over four days, so I decided to make one now. I headed over to the Confession Can.

"I thought the first challenge we faced was going to be the most insane. But boy was I wrong. There aren't words to describe how incredibly boring and difficult this second challenge was. I required a great deal of focus and concentration. There was really nothing to do during the whole thing, except wait for other people to fall asleep. At least one positive was that it was a good bonding experience between me and Cody. I also learned some things about Izzy as well." This reminded me about _it._ "And as far as me kissing Izzy, that was a complete accident. I did not mean to do that at all. It was just at the wrong place, at the wrong time."

I exited the confessional, glad to get that off of my chest.

Chris, I swear, if you don't air that last part, I will sneak into your house at night kill you while you least expect it.

And then I saw her.

"Oh hi Noah." She waved.

It was Izzy. Crap! What do I do? What the heck do I do?

I walked over to her, forcing my legs to move the entire way. I knew I had to get it over with sooner or later. I just wish I would have chosen 'later' instead of 'sooner'

"Uh, hi." I said meekly. What would she say?

She was silent. Come on, say something! You always talk every other time! Why not now?

"So, about what happened earlier…" I started.

"You mean when you read _Moby Dick _to me? That book was really good, by the way."

"I appreciate you complimenting the book, but no. Not that, the _other _thing that happened earlier."

"Oh. You mean when you kissed me on the lips."

"Quiet down. I don't want people to hear."

"Sorry."

"Look, I'm really sorry about what happened and I promise you it won't happen again."

"You don't have to apologize."

"Yes, I know what I did was very bad and that I'm a pervert and I deserve to die a painful death and _WHAT_?"

"I said, you don't have to apologize."

"Well, why not?"

"Because I know it was an accident." Phew.

"But also, for another reason."

"And what is that other reason."

She whispered the next part. "Because I liked it."

She then hummed a tune and skipped off, leaving me dazed and confused.

Well that was awkward.

I hadn't taken a bath today as I was watching the challenge, so I went over to my cabin, pulled out a fresh set of clothes and a towel and headed off to the communal washrooms.

The water was still freezing, even in the evening. I stood in the shower for about twenty minutes before I turned the water off and changed my clothes. I looked at my watch. It was now 5:56. The Killer Bass were heading over to the campfire pit.

I saw Owen.

"Dude, where the hell were you all of this time?" I asked him.

"Huh? I honestly have no idea. I remember falling asleep during the challenge, and then waking up washed upon the shoreline completely naked. I went to get my clothes and then joined you guys to watch the final two. That's all I can recollect.

"You were the first one to fall asleep." I told him.

"I was? Well, it's a good thing we didn't lose this challenge because I would have probably gotten the boot."

"Maybe."

The Bass had then come back from their elimination ceremony. Sans a certain fitness buff.

"Phew, that was a close one." Harold muttered as they went to their respective sides of the cabin.

It was only 6:10. There was still a lot of time left until bedtime.

Man, I feel like a kid. Bedtime? Seriously, Noah?

"So, are you sad about not getting to know Eva?" I asked Owen.

"Not really. I think she would kill me if I even went near her."

"She'd probably kill anyone that went near her."

"Yeah, most likely."

We both laughed. I hadn't really talked to Owen during the Awake-a-thon, because I was mostly talking with Cody and also because he fell asleep after only twelve hours.

Cody joined us after a while.

"Hey, is Trent still asleep?"

"Yeah. The dude's pretty tired. He did finish third."

"Let him sleep. He needs it." I said.

"So, you guys wanna go hang out by the hot tub?" Owen asked.

It had only been one challenge and I had already forgotten that we even had a hot tub.

"Sure." Cody and I said at the same time.

I grabbed my swim trunks and then sat in the tub. It felt pretty warm.

_Duh, it's called a HOT tub for a reason._

"So Cody, you got any other jokes?" I asked.

"Yeah. I got tons. How about this one: A woman along with her baby gets onto a bus. The bus driver says that the baby is the ugliest one that he has ever laid eyes on. The woman is insulted. She sits down and tells the person next to her what the bus driver said. To which the man replied"

He cleared his throat, a sign that he was getting to the punchline.

"You go right up there and berate him. Go on. And let me hold your monkey for you."

At this, Owen and I burst out laughing.

We laughed for a good minute, then Owen said that he had another joke.

"Okay, so two hunters are going out hunting in the woods. When one of them falls to the ground. The other hunter immediately calls the doctor. The doctor tells the conscious hunter to make sure the other hunter is dead. Then, a gunshot is heard. The hunter gets back on the phone and says 'okay, I made sure he was dead, now what?'"

Again, we laughed.  
"Okay Noah, your turn."

"I was wondering why the baseball was getting bigger, and then it hit me." Very punny.

Owen and Cody laughed half-heartedly. I decided to explain it to them

"You see, because 'it hit me' can mean two things. Okay, explaining a joke kinda ruins it."

We shared some more jokes and then went back to our cabins because it was getting cold out.

"It's time." I said, once inside.

"Chess?"

"Chess."

We pulled out the pieces and set them.

We then began talking.

"So, that challenge was pretty boring." Cody said.

"Tell me about it. So glad it's finally over." I replied.

"Yeah, let's hope none of our following challenges are that long."

"Let's hope."

"By the way, do you know who the Bass voted off?"

"Yeah. It was Eva."

"That girl needs anger-management classes."

"For sure."

"Although, Harold was muttering something about it 'being a close one'."

"I think he was the last person to get a marshmallow."

"I think so too. Although I wonder why."

"Yeah. I don't think he did anything bad during the challenge, do you?"

"Not anything that I can remember."

We played in silence for a while.

Then, I spoke. "I've got it!"

"What?"

"Up till now, I was thinking that everyone had voted for Eva."

"I thought that as well."

"Which would be correct, except for the fact that we forgot about Eva's vote."

"So you're saying that Eva voted for Harold."

"Precisely."

So the (plausible) voting for the second marshmallow ceremony was as follows:

Eva – Harold

Everyone else – Eva

Total: Eva (9); Harold (1)

Eliminated: Eva

"Wow Noah, how do you manage to figure stuff out so fast?"

"It's elementary, my dear Cody." I replied. Actually, I had had eight years to figure out all of these things which had perplexed me at first.

"So, I heard you kissed Izzy." Cody replied, startling me.

How the hell did he know. Only one way: Izzy told him. Darn it, Izzy.

"It was a complete accident. I was sleeping and I never even knew that she was next to me."

_Good thing it wasn't YOU I was kissing._

"Whatever, bro."

"Cody, I've said it once and I'll say it again. She and I are just acquaintances."

"An acquaintance that you kissed. On the lips."

"Aw, is Cody jealous that I kissed a girl before him?" He obviously wouldn't listen to my plea, so I decided to turn the tables on him.

It worked. He shut up for the rest of the match, which I lost. Oddly enough, I was checkmated by a queen.

"Haha. I now lead 2-1. The lead is mine once again."

"But not for long." I said.

While heading off to sleep, I could swear that I heard Cody gently humming "Under Pressure" to himself.

* * *

Finally! This challenge is over! Good thing too, because I was seriously running out of stuff to write about. The jokes told in the hot tub are not my own. The ones mentioned in the last chapter are not my own either. They are all from the interwebs, which is where almost everything awesome spawns from. I like all songs mentioned. Please don't fight over it.


	11. The Dodgefather

Total Drama Island © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

* * *

_**Total Drama Redemption**_

**Day Nine (09)**

"It's day number nine! My favorite day!" Trent yelled as I was beginning to wake up.

I didn't bother to ask him why it was his favorite, since I already knew.

It was now 10:00. "You're getting up just now?" I asked him.

"Well, I haven't really gotten much sleep during the past couple of days because of the challenge."

"Do you feel rested now?"

"Mostly."

I had also recovered from my irregular sleeping pattern.

We brushed our teeth, took a shower and then headed off for breakfast. Some of the other campers were already there, while some had just started to show up, like us.

I sat next to Owen and ate my food.

Then I gave up and passed the leftovers to Owen, who gladly gobbled the sludge.

We were feeling pretty upbeat after having won the first two challenges.

After a while, all the campers showed up except for Gwen and Harold.

Then Chris walked in.

"Duncan! You look like crap, dude!"

"Stuff it." Was the delinquents reply.

Then Courtney explained the situation. "Harold snored all night."

"Maybe that's why Eva voted for him?" I said to Cody.

"Wow, four nights with no sleep? How much are you hurting dude?" Chris taunted.

"You wanna find out!?" Duncan replied.

The rest of the Killer Bass dived under the table. Some Gophers also did the same. Geoff was right; Duncan _was _pretty frightening when he was angry.

So first he angers Eva and now Duncan? Does Chris have a death wish?

"No, no, it's cool. It's cool." Chris said defensively, raising his arms.

Just then, the door swung opened and everyone turned to see who it was. Gwen? Santa Claus?

Wrong. It was Harold. And he had a mustache drawn on him with permanent marker!

There were gasps, chuckles and loud bouts of laughter after we all saw Harold's face.

Harold was confused as to why everyone was jeering, then after Geoff explained it to him, the lanky nerd didn't seem irritated by it.

Then Chris spoke again.

"Hey everyone! It's Gwen!"

The Screaming Gophers cheered and clapped for the winner of the last challenge.

Gwen slowly plodded along to her seat. "I'm sotired, I can't feel my face." She said, face-planting the table.

Heather began talking about something with Beth and Lindsay. I knew it was about their alliance. She was intimidating the two into obeying whatever she wanted them to do.

Heather then turned to the Killer Bass.

"Hey fish heads, way to kick out your strongest player. Why don't you just give up now?"

Heather then moved out of the way as Gwen took oatmeal to the face.

Oatmeal! Are you crazy?

"Missed me." Heather taunted as Courtney scowled.

"Okay campers! Listen up. Your next challenge begins in ten minutes. And be prepared to bring it!"

"Chris! We just had a challenge!" Courtney argued.

"It ended just yesterday." Trent seconded.

"I know." The host answered. "But that challenge took five frickin days to finish, so we're kind of behind schedule here."

We all groaned as Chris left, saying he would be back in a while to lead us to your challenge venue.

"Another challenge already?" Cody asked.

"There's a schedule?" Trent questioned.

"What's his name?" Lindsay wondered.

"Chris!" We all replied.

"Ooooooooh." The blonde said.

"Was she dropped on her head when she was born?" Cody asked me.

"No, that's Izzy." I replied.

"You mean your girlfriend?"

"What? We're not even dating!"

"So you do like her."

I narrowed my eyes at him. Then Chris showed up again.

"Alright campers, chop, chop. It's time to go."

He led us out of the Mess Hall and into a wide open clearing by the shore. In that clearing was a wooden court which had two adjacent squares drawn into it. The court was surrounded by acrylic glass, or Plexiglas, as it is more commonly known as.

"I swear this wasn't here before." Cody told me.

"I think it was brought here specifically for this challenge." I said.

"I wonder what it's going to be."

"Well, we're about to find out."

Chris opened the door and we entered the court. Duncan was the last to enter. He immediately fell asleep on the bleachers.

"Wake me up, and it will be the last thing you do." The punk warned the Bass. He then dozed off.

It was safe to say that he was pretty tired.

Courtney then blamed Harold. "This is all your fault, you know! You and your snoring face."

"It's called a medical condition GOSH!" The nerd replied.

He didn't need to take crap from her.

Chef then blew a whistle, silencing us. It was then that I realized that he was dressed in a referee uniform.

Chris then went over the rules.

"Today's challenge is the classic game of dodgeball. The first rule of dodgeball is"

"Do not talk about dodgeball?" I replied. "Fight Club" rules. Owen and I snickered.

"As I was saying," Chris said, diverting the attention back to him. "If you get hit with the ball" He then threw the ball at Courtney, slamming her in the chest. "You're out."

For a moment there, I thought he was going to hit me for interrupting him.

Courtney threw the ball back at Chris in frustration, but the host caught it.

"If you catch the ball, the thrower gets sent out and the catcher gets to bring in another team member out on the court."

"That should make things interesting." Cody said.

"Throwing balls. Gee. Another mentally challenging test." I said sarcastically.

"I knoooooow, right?" Lindsay asked me.

That was a joke, Lindsay.

"Okay now Geoff, try to hit me." Chris said, tossing him the ball.

"If you're holding a ball, you can use it to deflect a ball, but, if it knocks the ball out of your hands, you're out!"

"So, what do I do again when the ball comes at me?" Lindsay asked inquisitively. Was she not paying attention this whole time?

"You dodge." Chris replied.

Geoff threw the ball, Chris deflected it with a ball of his own and Geoff's ball hit Lindsay smack dab in the face.

"Oooooo." Chris grimaced. "You were supposed to dodge!"

"Oh. Right." Lindsay moaned, revealing a bump on her forehead.

"You have one minute until game time. Gophers, you'll have to sit one person out each game."

We gathered in a team huddle as the Bass gathered into theirs.

Heather was saying that we couldn't get lazy after having won the firsts two challenges, as the Killer Bass were going to be trying even harder now as they were down two members.

"Who wants to sit the first one out with sleeping beauty here?" She said, motioning to Gwen.

We were silent for a while, and then I volunteered to sit the round out.

The first round was about to begin. Cody, Leshawna, Owen, Heather and Lindsay were on the court for our team, while Courtney, Tyler, Katie, DJ and Harold were on the floor for the Bass.

"We will rock you!" Cody shouted.

"Queen references were for yesterday!" Harold yelled back yelled back

"Bring it on fishies! Otherwise winning three in a row just won't be as satisfying."

Don't count your chickens before they hatch, Heather.

The Killer Bass were irate.

"Oh, you're going down!" Tyler yelled. "We're gonna bring the dinner to the table, and then, we're gonna eat it!"

Great insult Tyler. I wouldn't want to get into a dissing competition with _you_ anytime soon.

Courtney face-palmed as Chris spoke.

"Both teams ready? Best of five games wins. Now! Let's dodge some balls."

Chef blew his whistle and the third challenge had officially begun.

I decided not to read my book this time and actually watch, no matter _how_ much I hated sports.

Cody was first to throw a ball, but Tyler dodged it. An angry Tyler began spinning around with a ball in his hand.

Luckily for our team, he misfired and hit Sadie, who was in the bleachers. Just a teensy bit off there, dude.

"That'll smear the make-up." Chris commented.

"Nice job." Courtney scolded Tyler. "Now let's see if you can hit someone on _their _team!"

She handed him the ball, but he didn't have any time to throw because a charging Owen sent him crashing into the wall.

"Ow. Darn it." Tyler grumbled.

Chef blew his whistle, signaling that Tyler was out. The jock headed over to the bleachers.

I tried to say something to Gwen, but she was asleep.

"Nice job Owen!" I yelled. He high-fived Cody.

Chef blew the whistle again.

"Time to unleash my wicked skills." Harold said.

"Yeah? Then bring it string bean, let's see what you got!" Leshawna taunted.

Harold performed 'The Crane' move, jumped in the air and slammed his ball on the ground. It bounced a couple of times before slowly rolling over to Leshawna.

_TOTALLY wicked skills right there._

Leshawna picked up the ball and Harold ran in the other direction, squealing like a little girl.

Leshawna hit him on the back of his head and the nerd was sent sliding to the wall head first. A crunch was heard.

_That's gotta hurt._

Harold was out and we clapped for Leshawna.

"Can someone remind me what I'm supposed to do with this again?" Lindsay asked. A ball then smacked her in the head.

_I'm pretty sure it's not THAT._

Katie high-fived DJ and Courtney as Lindsay went to the bleachers. Along the way, she saw Tyler waving at her and waved back.

This greatly infuriated Heather, who launched a ball at Tyler, hitting him in the chest.

Courtney argued to Chef the Ref that Tyler wasn't even on the court.

"Oopsies. Slipped." Heather said.

Courtney was angry and launched a ball at Heather, but Owen caught it, causing Courtney to be out.

Chef then mentioned for Gwen to come on to the court. I thought Gwen was sitting out?

It didn't matter much as DJ dodged Owen's ball and hit a sleepy Gwen with his own ball after Owen ducked.

Gwen had now been hit twice when she wasn't the target.

She didn't seem to have any problem with it, however and headed back to the bench.

Owen was distraught and DJ hit him when the food-lover wasn't paying attention.

Heather saw Lindsay ogling Tyler and again threw a ball at him. The Bass ducked this and Heather was sent out by Chef for purposely hitting non-players.

"May I bring to your attention that the Bass that you need to hit are the ones on the _court_?" I asked her.

She scoffed and sat down next to me. There were now two people left on both teams.

DJ and Katie both threw their balls at Leshawna. The girl deflected one ball, but took another one to her stomach.

Cody was the only one left on our team.

"Easy out guys. Easy out." Courtney said condescendingly.

The Gophers were worried.

Cody threw his ball in the air, caught it, and launched it at DJ. The ball missed at first, but then it spun back and hit DJ in the butt! It was a boomerang ball.

"That is one tough ball to dodge." Chris commented from the sidelines.

Katie then threw a ball at Cody, but the tech geek ducked to avoid it. He then vigorously rubbed the ball against his shirt and flung it at Katie. She ran around, trying to dodge the ball, but she ran into the wall and the ball hit her not long afterwards.

The Screaming Gophers had won round one!

"Using static electricity. Nice." I complimented Cody.

Weren't the balls made of rubber? Rubber can't conduct electricity. How did Cody manage to do that?

I decided that it was some form of black magic, when Heather addressed me.

"Alright Noah, you're up."

"You know, you guys did such an awesome job on the last game that I don't want to mess up your mojo." What the heck was I saying? This was exactly the reason why I got the boot after this challenge.

"Fine." Heather replied before I could retract my previous statement. She gave Beth the go-ahead.

"Hey Cody, why'd you sit out?" I asked him.

"I wanted to give my teammates a chance." He replied.

Chef blew his whistle. Round two was about to start.

Trent, Lindsay, Izzy, Beth and Owen were on for our team, while Katie, Sadie, Tyler, Bridgette and Geoff were on for our opponents.

One thing surprised us however: Tyler had all four of balls for the Bass.

He spun around. One of the balls hit Chef. Another one nearly hit Chris. Darn, so close! A third one headed for our bleachers as we all jumped in different directions. The last one hit Lindsay in the head.

"Nooooooo!" Tyler yelled, running over to Lindsay.

"Finally." Courtney remarked.

We regrouped on the bleachers as Tyler was crouching over Lindsay.

"Oh my gosh, my face. How's my face?" The blonde asked as Tyler grimaced.

"It's really…not that bad." The jock told her. "You still look great!"

"He's right." Cody said as I jabbed him in the shoulder.

Trent then went over to Tyler and threw him out.

Tyler didn't look dismayed in the slightest as he asked Lindsay if she wanted to go for a walk.

Heather was shocked. "Hey! Hey! Get back here." She shouted at Lindsay. "You are so close to being out of the alliance!"

I'm surprised she let that one slip.

"_Great Gatsby_ that is it! GAME OOOOOOOON!" Owen yelled as he went on a rampage, knocking out Katie, Sadie, Bridgette and Geoff in quick succession.

"I don't know what got into me." The big guy said afterwards.

"Remind me not to get on _his _bad side." Cody told me.

Owen, thou shalt not take a novel's name in vain.

"Ooooo. He dropped it like it was hot!" Leshawna yelled.

"I'm glad _someone_ is trying today." Heather said. That's what she _would _have said. I was actually cheering my team on, so she didn't say it! Instead, she immediately taunted the Bass.

"Hey, it's two-zero. How does it feel to suck so much?"

"It's not over yet." Courtney replied. This is exactly what I wanted to tell Heather. Courtney then slapped her forehead.

"Okay, so who's going this time?" Heather asked.

"I'll go." I didn't want to say it, but I would get kicked off if I don't.

"Justin, how about you?" Heather asked the model.

"What? Me? Go? And ruin my perfect bod?"

Heather sighed. Who had made _her _leader anyway? Well, it wasn't like I wanted to lead so I let her dictate.

Izzy, Beth, Leshawna and Owen were the others who agreed to go.

"You're not going this time either?" I asked Cody.

"Haha, we have a two to nothing lead. We've so got this." He said confidently.

We looked over to the Bass. Bridgette, Courtney, Harold and Geoff were holding a long stick and poking Duncan with it. They poked him in the nose and the punk immediately got up, broke the stick in half and started threatening Harold. Courtney stepped in to defend him.

"Oh man, they're bringing in Duncan?" Owen asked.

We all gulped. He was their toughest player. Only matched by Eva, who was now gone.

"Don't worry about him guys. It's time to put this matter to bed." Heather told us.

"That's what she said." Cody remarked as we all groaned.

Chef blew the whistle, signaling the third (and possibly final) round to start.

I have to say that it is a totally different feeling when you're actually on the court than when you're spectating.

_No big deal, Noah. It's just a game. A game where I could get seriously injured._

The enemies were Courtney, Geoff, DJ, Katie and gulp…Duncan.

I threw a ball at Courtney, because I hated her. She easily dodged my pathetic excuse for a throw. Duncan avoided Leshawna's throw.

The Bass collected the balls and threw launched them all at Owen. The dude fell to the ground as the four of us stood over him.

"You okay, big guy?" I asked him.

"Can you parents my phone and worry them not to tell, Santa." Was his reply.

Owen was out. It was time for round 3 to continue. The Bass gathered the balls and threw them all at me. Oh no! What do I do? Do I go up? Down? Left? Right? WHAM! I felt my body go limp as I collapsed to the ground.

I watched from the sidelines as the Bass used the same tactics to take out Izzy, Beth and Leshawna.

The Bass had won their first game. They jumped in joy.

We sat back on the sidelines.

"We are not losing another game to these guys, got it?" Heather ordered us. "And where is Lindsay? Ugh!" The queen bee stormed off to find the brainless bombshell.

"They just _had _to go and wake up Duncan." I said.

"There's nothing we can do about that now. We need a way to combat their strategy." Said Cody.

The whistle then sounded, signaling the start of the fourth round.

"Aw man, we don't have a counter-strategy yet." Trent spoke.

"We need some more time to figure things out." I said.

"Okay, you sit on the sidelines while we try to buy you guys some time. Izzy, Beth, Justin, Owen and I will go on the court." Said Leshawna.

"And risk chipping a tooth?" Justin asked.

"Okay, fine. Trent, you go instead of him"

The aforementioned team was up against the same Bass team as the last round: Geoff, Duncan, Courtney, Bridgette and Katie.

The whistle blew and the fourth round had started.

I talked with Cody. "So obviously their strategy involves throwing all four of their balls at the same person."

The Killer Bass then launched all four of their balls at Izzy.

"Can't we just use it ourselves?" Cody asked.

"Duncan invented the strategy. I'm pretty sure he has a way to combat it." I said. Trent was KO'd at this point.

"Yeah, he's orchestrating the whole thing." Said Cody.

"That's it!" I exclaimed. I whispered our counter-tactics to Cody, who agreed. At this point, Owen was taken out.

Heather then returned with Lindsay.

"Sit down and stay there." She ordered the blonde. Lindsay then sat next to me.

"How are we doing?" She asked as Beth got hit.

"Not good, but I have a plan to combat the Killer Bass strategy." Leshawna was then decimated.

The whistle blew, and the Bass had managed to tie the scores.

"This is so unacceptable." Heather grumbled.

Tyler then came in and sat on the Bass bleachers, rubbing his head.

"Okay, this is it. The final tiebreaking game." The host said.

"Hey Cody, remember when you said 'we got this' Two rounds ago?'" I asked the tech geek.

"I guess I spoke too soon." Cody said, chuckling nervously.

"I cannot believe that you guys squandered a two-zero lead." Heather said.

"You should be one to talk. All you've done is thrown balls at the Bass sidelines." I said.

"You haven't hit anyone either, smartass." She retorted.

"Guys. Arguing will not do us any good." Leshawna said, stepping between us. "Noah, what's your plan?"

I then told them my plan. It was perfectly foolproof. Hopefully.

"I'll go in this round." I said. "I have to help implement this plan."

Cody also agreed to go. The guy had sat out for three rounds in a row.

Heather wanted to go as well, to prove that she could hit Bass that weren't spectators.

Gwen went in, muttering that "she wanted revenge".

Owen also wanted to go in. He would not be contained for three rounds in a row.

The Bass had sent out DJ, Courtney, Katie, Bridgette and Geoff. No Duncan? They were plotting something, that's for sure.

"Gophers, Bass. Let's send this sample to the lab, and see what you're made of!"

The whistle sounded. This was it. The fifth and final round. Make it or break it, do or die, etcetera, etc.

Gwen kicked the ball up. She tossed it to Cody.

"Come on people." Heather said. "Quick feet, fast hands."

Cody tossed the ball to me, and I tossed it to Heather. She then flung it at DJ, who jumped over it.

Bridgette then threw at Heather, who jumped. Owen and Cody both threw, both of them missing.

Courtney then threw at Cody, sending him out.

This pissed me off. I grabbed a ball, sent all the rage into it and threw with all of my might, which wasn't that much. SPLAT! Courtney had ducked, but it hit Bridgette in the head.

It was now four all.

DJ flung a ball at me, but I ducked. Geoff threw at Heather, but the queen bee caught it. This sent Geoff out and Beth was brought in.

Then, something happened that I thought would never, ever happen.

I got over excited about a sport. I threw a ball at Courtney, but she caught it. Damnit! I was out and Duncan was brought in. Oh fudge me.

Katie then threw a ball at Owen, but the big guy deflected it. Owen threw the ball he had in his hand at DJ, who was sent out. Geoff then misfired at Beth, and was thrown out by the farm girl.

Things continued like this for quite some time. People were sent out, only to be brought back in a while later, only to be sent out again. The cycle continued. It was the final round, and winner takes all. The Gophers were determined not to lose this challenge after they had the lead, while the Bass did not want to make it a hat-trick in terms of sending someone home.

Gwen slammed Courtney in the face. "That's for the oatmeal." She said.

Haha, take that Ms. C.I.T.!

I was back on the court after Leshawna caught out Tyler.

Staring us down were Duncan, Bridgette and DJ.

"It's time to use the counter-strategy." I said, as we all pelted Duncan with balls.

I figured that since Duncan was the leader of the whole operation, he would tell the others how to play well. With him out, they had no leader.

Bridgette then launched a ball at Gwen, but Cody jumped and took the blow. He sacrificed himself for a noble cause.

I then threw a ball at DJ, but the dude caught it, sending me out. Harold was brought in.

"Good luck you two." I told Gwen and Owen.

I sat on the bleachers.

"Are you okay? You took a ball to the balls." I said to Cody.

He chuckled. "It hurts, but I did it for Gwen!"

DJ and Gwen then took each other out.

Owen launched a ball at Bridgette, and the surfer girl was taken to the cleaners.

It was now down to two dodgeballers: Owen and Harold.

The Gophers cheered. We had Owen and they had Harold there was no way we could lose this right? Right?

That's what I thought the first time around. Actually, the first time around, I was too busy reading my book. I thought Owen would win for sure when I watched the episode on TV. That's a more accurate way of saying it.

"Since it's _finally _down to two people, I'll add in some extra balls." The host said, adding in four more balls to the arena. There were now a total of eight.

Owen picked up four balls. "Sorry dude, but you've gotta go down." He said to Harold.

Harold made some kung-fu poses and then taunted Owen with his hands motioning for him to 'bring it'.

"Oh, he'll bring it, alright." Cody said to me.

Owen charged at the gawky Harold. He fired two balls at the same time, then rattled off a third, and then another.

Harold jumped over two, spun around another and skipped past the last one.

Owen then spun his arm around in a circle and launched the ball at Harold, who bent back his body and dodged it.

Needless to say, the Screaming Gophers were stunned.

"Harold knows 'The Matrix' move?" Cody asked me.

"Apparently." I replied.

Courtney called for a time-out, and Chef blew the whistle.

"I never knew you could call a time-out." Trent said.

Owen came over to us.

"What do I do? He keeps dodging everything."

"Just keep throwing more things at him. There's no way that he can dodge them all." Trent said.

"And he can't win if he keeps dodging. He'll have to throw sooner or later. And we all know that he can't throw for crap." Heather said.

"Throw the ball wherever you think he's going to dodge. That way, he'll get hit unexpectedly." I suggested.

"Did we win yet?" Lindsay asked. We ignored her.

The whistle blew. It was time to finish this.

"You've got thith Owen." Beth said, trying to pump him up.

We cheered for Owen, who was holding a ball. Harold was standing at the other end.

"Harold! Harold! Harold!" The Bass began to cheer their last member on.

Owen spun his arm around a great many times. "Cowa…bunga!" He yelled, firing the ball in missile like fashion at the lanky nerd on the other end. The ball slammed into his chest, knocked him to the glass and onto the ground.

The Gophers cheered.

Our cheering was cut short when Harold revealed that he had actually caught the ball.

_Talk about premature celebration._

"The Killer Bass win!" Chris exclaimed.

Owen slumped to the ground. "It's impossible! Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?"

The Killer Bass carried Harold off as Chris approached us.

"Gophers? What happened?" He asked.

"Harold happened, Chris. Harold happened." I replied.

"Well, I'll be seeing you guys at the bonfire ceremony tonight. Your win streak has ended. It's time for you guys to vote someone off."

We went our separate ways, wondering who we should vote off. The official meeting was to be held at dinner.

As I was heading to the cabin, someone came up to me. I didn't expect them in the slightest.

"Hey man." DJ said.

"Hi." I relied. "What do you want?"

"Well, remember that bet we made yesterday?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"Well here's your money." He said, giving me ten bucks.

"Wow, you're an honest guy DJ. Most people wouldn't remember to give money to another person cause of a bet."

"Well, I'm not like most people."

"Well, enjoy your victory." I replied.

"Thanks. I don't want Courtney to see me talking to a member of the other team."

"I don't think Heather would approve either." I said as we headed our separate ways.

I went into my cabin and saw Cody. We decided to play our nightly chess game at that time.

"I wish I were you right now." I told him.

"Why?" He asked.

"You're not one of the people on the chopping block."

"But why would you be on the chopping block?" Cody asked me.

"Let's see… I only managed to hit one person by myself, I was the one who allowed Harold to come into the game, I took the role of leader and doomed my team, and I could go on and on."

"Why are you only focusing on the negatives?"

"I'm focusing on the truth."

"Other people could go as well. We'll just have to find out at the meeting who else is on the chopping block."

"Yep. I like chess way more than dodgeball, don't you?" I asked, trying to divert our conversation.

"They both have their pros and cons." He replied.

"Chess is way less physical, that's for sure."

"Yeah, there is _that."_

"Hey Cody, you never told me how you managed to throw that boomerang ball."

"A dodgeballer never reveals his secrets." He said.

Our game ended in a draw. We were both thinking about our first elimination ceremony and what would happen in it. We would soon find out.

We went to the dinner table, where the other members of the Screaming Gophers were sitting. The Killer Bass were at the other table, rejoicing that they didn't have to go yet another marshmallow ceremony.

"We went from heroes to zeroes in less than a day." Said Owen.

"But who's to blame for it?" Heather asked us.

The last time around, it was obviously me, but this time, I had done my part. I think.

"How about _you _since you only managed to get one player out?" I suggested.

"Um, Earth to Noah, you only got one player out as well." The queen bee shot back.

"Guys! Stop the quarrelling. Can we please sit down and discuss who to vote off like civilized people?" Trent said.

"Civilized people don't join crazy reality shows." Gwen said.

"Does this make-up make me look fat?" Lindsay asked.

"Okay, that's it. Meeting adjourned!" Leshawna said, frustrated.

So we never decided as a team who was going to be sent home.

I went over to the Confession Can

"I'm not really that good at sports, but I'm glad I decided to participate instead of just sitting on the sidelines and reading a book or some nonsense like that. It was actually pretty fun! The only thing that would have made it better was that we lost. And that was partially due to me. We'll see who the blame is assigned to at the marshmallow ceremony."

I exited.

"Attention Screaming Gophers! Report to the campfire pit immediately for the bonfire ceremony!" Chris said over the speakerphone.

As I said, let's see who gets assigned the blame.

We made our way over to the campfire pit for the first time.

Chris was standing there.

"It's now time for you guys to vote." He motioned to the voting booth, which looked similar to the Confession Can. "The votes will be done alphabetically." Was that his way of deciding the order for _everything? _"Beth, you're up first."

I went in after Lindsay. Again, it reeked of perfume.

"Okay, so there are a lot of people that I could vote for at this point, but I vote for Justin. He's like and Anti-Me. He simply uses his good looks to get whatever he wants, and for this challenge, he didn't even lift a single finger. All he did was sit there, doing nothing." It then occurred to me that this was exactly what I had done the first time around. I continued "Plus, he's always so… silent. Justin's my vote!" I left the voting booth and Owen entered. This continued until all of the votes were casted.

"Screaming Gophers. Welcome to your first ever bonfire ceremony on TOTAL…DRAMA…ISLAND!"

We covered our ears and Chris continued.

"You've already placed your votes and made your decisions. One of you will be going home, and you can't come back. Ever!"

Being back at this place reminded me of how much of a dick I was the first time around. I accused my entire team of being stupid and got marshmallows pelted at me. Everyone was cheering as I left. I was a real jerk.

Chris continued. "When you hear me call out your name, come pick up a marshmallow."

He then called out the people who were safe. While I reasoned why they were safe.

"Owen." For being the best player during the challenge.

"Gwen." For winning the previous challenge, as well as doing well in this one.

And those two (Owen and Gwen) would then advance all the way to the finals the first time around.

"Cody." That dude was a master baller.

"Trent." He didn't do too badly either.

"Heather." She didn't do much. Her meanness was overlooked by the fact that some people sucked more than her at dodgeball.

"Beth." She was solid. Not much else to say there.

"Leshawna." She also did pretty well.

"Izzy." She didn't suck.

And that left three of us. Lindsay, Justin and I. Why was I stuck with a gorgeous babe and a male model? Not good.

"Lindsay." She tried. She really did.

"The final marshmallow goes to…"

So it comes down to this. This was it. The moment we had all been waiting for.

It was me versus Anti-Me.

Oh man, I am screwed. All the girls love him. They would never vote for him. He's got that charming smile and that handsome face. I'll go home again, just like last time. Maybe it was fate? Maybe there was no way to change the outcome? Maybe it was destined to be like this?

A million more questions popped into my head. After a period of what seemed like forever, Chris announced the final name.

"…Noah." Holy crap!

I ran over to receive the final marshmallow. It was my first one. It tasted so sweet.

"And that means Justin, you're out."

Some of the girls were sad as Justin went to the cabin to grab his luggage. After a few minutes, he came back with it and walked the Dock of Shame, boarded the Boat of Losers and left Total Drama Island.

No one said anything to him, and he didn't say anything back. He left as he arrived: silently.

"So Chris, we're not having another challenge tomorrow right? I mean, we've had two eliminations in two nights!"

"Maybe..." The host replied. "You'll just have to find out tomorrow!"

The rest of us then grumbled and headed back to our cabins. With a guy like Chris, anything was possible.

"I'm gonna miss that guy." Owen said once we entered. He was talking about Justin.

"Why? Cause you have a man-crush on him?" I asked

"No. He's pretty smoking hot, but I don't like him. I mean, I like him, but I don't _like _like him, you know what I mean?"

"Not really."

Owen then tried to explain it to us when he was really just confusing us more and more.

I have to say, nothing much changed with Justin gone. He was always so silent.

I went to sleep that night a very happy camper. Pun definitely intended.

* * *

So Noah's safe! Yay! This is now the longest chapter ever. Sorry if it seemed too episode-centric, I tried to change it up a bit, as well as tie in some loose ends with this challenge. (Such as how Heather and Owen were out in the first round)

"Dodgebrawl" was the first episode of TDI that I watched so I want to thank CN for airing it at the moment in time. That was the reason I got into _Total Drama._

Also, I have some college stuff that's coming up so I might not update for about ten to twelve days. Please don't assume that I've died if it takes longer. This outro is getting pretty long, so, until next chapter, good bye.


	12. Noah's List

I know it took a really long time to update, but I can explain! I was busy with a lot of stuff and college and rain and… who am I kidding? I'm a lazy slacker. It's as simple as that.

Alright, enough of the epilogue. Let's get to what you really came here for: Noah.

* * *

Total Drama Island © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

* * *

_**Total Drama Redemption**_

**Day Ten (10)**

I woke up today with a couple of things on my to-do list.

"So this is how day ten feels like." I said to myself. It didn't feel much different from the last nine days.

My first order of business was to find out how the voting went.

I was the last person left in the cabin, and got up, went to the washrooms, brushed my teeth and took a bath.

I then went over to the Mess Hall, where Owen was sitting. He was munching on something.

I grabbed a tray, got my food and sat my butt down next to Owen.

"What's up man?" I said.

"Hi dude. How ya doing?" He said.

"Still feeling pretty shaken up after receiving the last marshmallow." It was a mix of pride and fear.

"I have no idea how that feels."

"And you should hope that you never have to."

I paused for a moment, letting it sink in, before I continued.

"It feels pretty bad. You think that you will be the next one to go. But at least I'm still here."

"I should have tried harder. We definitely should have won that challenge. I should have thrown the ball harder to Harold, then he wouldn't have caught it."  
"It sucks that the Bass had to arise Duncan from his slumber. If only he hadn't woken up and spoiled our victory. And besides, you played a hellof a lot better than me."

"But I could have prevented Justin from being out."

I was glad that he had brought up the elimination on his own.

"Speaking of which, who'd _you _vote for?" I asked him.

At this time, some more people started showing up.

"Maybe we should talk about this somewhere else." Owen said. He didn't feel comfortable talking about it in public.

"In our cabin?" I asked him.

"In our cabin."

I desperately choked down two spoonfuls of food before deciding that I couldn't eat any more of it. I headed off to the cabin. Owen gobbled the rest of my food and followed me.

We entered out cabin. We were the only ones there.

I sat down on a bed and Owen sat next to me.

"So, where were we?" Asked Owen.

"You were going to say who you voted for."

"Oh, right. I picked Lindsay because all of the guys here are my friends and the other girls didn't do as bad as Lindsay."

"You voted for Lindsay? So did I!" A voice said. It was Trent's He had just entered the room and was now sitting beside us.

"So who did you vote for?" They asked me.

I wondered for a while whether or not I should tell the truth as neither of them had voted for Justin, but then I decided against lying.

"I voted for Justin. The guy didn't even play for one frickin round. At least Lindsay tried."

"Yeah. I was wondering about voting for him, but I thought Lindsay would be better off leaving since she's so brain-dead." Trent said.

"Wow, Trent. Never expected that from you." Owen said.

"I know it's kind of mean, but if she couldn't understand how to play dodgeball when the rules are _in _the name, then she would not be of much use in more complex challenges."

"I guess, but at least she participated." I said.

"So, anyone know where Cody is?" Owen asked after we were silent for a bit.

"Last I saw, he was talking about something with Harold."

"Nerds of a feather flock together." I said, heading off to find the tech geek.

I saw him sitting by the dock, playing his DS.

He put it down once he saw me.

"Hey Noah."

"Hey dude, why are you here?"

I decided not to beat around the bush.

"I wanted to ask you who you voted for, if you don't mind."

"Oh yeah, that. I voted for Justin. That dude makes all the ladies swoon and that's supposed to be _my _job!"

"Whatever you say, Codemeister."

Then, a certain person popped up on us.

"You voted for Justin?"

"Yes, Izzy." Cody said.

"And so did I." I piped up.

"I don't trust the guy. He's always so…"

"Silent?"

"Bingo!"

"Wow, you guys even think alike. You sure you aren't a couple?"

"Yes, Cody. I'm pretty sure."

"A couple? You mean like a couple of good friends?" Izzy asked us.

"Yes. That's exactly what he meant." I said, quickly covering Cody's mouth and pulling him away with me.

When we were far enough away, I let go of a struggling Cody.

"What was that for?" He asked.

I then saw Beth walking out from the girl's cabin. I walked over to her.

"Hi Beth."

"Oh. Hi Noah."

"So, Cody and I were wondering how the voting went last night."

"We were?" Cody asked.

"So, who'd you vote for, if you don't mind me asking?"

She paused for a bit. "Who did I vote for? Well, it, um, wasn't for Lindsay, I'll tell you that." She then chuckled nervously. "I… have to…uh… go to the restroom. Why do you care anyway? I don't bug _you _about who _you _voted for!" She then bolted off.

And I knew that she had voted for me. It wasn't her fault. Heather had ordered her to vote me off. It was probably because of how much I spited her yesterday. Heather got so pissed off; she wanted me to get the boot.

I had made a powerful enemy. And only three challenges in, wasn't that just swell?

"I figured out the voting." I told Cody. I then told him how the voting supposedly went.

Beth – Noah

Cody – Justin

Gwen – Justin

Heather – Noah

Izzy – Justin

Justin – Noah

Leshawna – Justin

Lindsay – Noah

Noah – Justin

Owen – Lindsay

Trent – Lindsay

Total: Justin (5); Noah (4); Lindsay (2)

Eliminated: Justin

"Wow, I escaped by only one vote. I anyone that voted me instead of Justin, I would have been a goner." I had gotten really lucky.

"Well, you're here and he's not. That's all that matters."

"I guess so."

When I entered the voting booth last night, I remembered something. I made it my second thing on my list.

Chris made an announcement on his megaphone.

"Greetings, campers! I hope you're all ready for your next challenge!"

"Already?" I asked Cody.

There was a lot of moping and grumbling that could be heard around the campgrounds. After a while, we heard Chris's voice again.

"Psych! I got you guys good didn't I?"

There was more grumbling but also sighs of relief.

"I love messing with you guys. Enjoy your free day. Who knows? It might be your last!"

Chris, I think we could have done without that last remark.

I then went off to find the host.

"Where are you going?" Cody asked me.

"I got some stuff to do." I told him, heading off. He went back to the rocks, most likely because he wanted to play his video game.

I found Chris sitting on a bench with a sandwich in his hand.

"Hello Mr. Sarcastic."

"Chris, I gotta talk to you about something." I told him, unsure about how I was going to approach this.

"About what?"

"So I was at the elimination last night, as you know."

"Yes, I know."

"And I think that there's a flaw in the voting system."

"What flaw?"

"We have to write our names on the paper, place them in a box and then you count them, am I right?'

"Yes, that is how the system works."

"But what if someone wrote the same name on a lot of papers and replaced them with the actual votes? What would happen then?"

"There's still a camera in the confession room. We could catch the cheater."

"What if someone steals the tape?"

"The only person who knows how to do that is me."

"But do you really want to take the chance?"

"Not really. Fine. So what do you suggest?"

"Here" I said, handing him a list that I had written.

"Wow, you came prepared, didn't you?"

"Yep."

"But you know" Chris said, glancing over the list. "This stuff is _not _going to be cheap."

I sighed. Then I remembered all the money I had acquired with the bets I made.

"I'll pitch in." I said, handing him fifty dollars.

"This should help a bit." He said. "So why are you concerned about this anyway?"

"I just want the game to be fair." I said.

Courtney annoys the heck out of me. She always brags so much, and she has that irritating voice that I can't stand to hear. She's a control-freak who underestimates her opponents. She got on my nerves so much in Total Drama Action.

But despite all of this, I don't think she deserved to get booted off the island unfairly. So no matter how much she gets on my nerves, I had to stop Harold from rigging the votes against her.

Plus, by doing this, I am also protecting Harold from Courtney's wrath.

With that out of the way, I made my way back to the cabins.

Cody was inside, along with Owen. Cody had a comic book in hand and Owen was lying awake on his bed, thinking about something.

"The whereabouts of the gentleman referred to as Trent are currently unbeknownst to me." Cody said.

It took me a while to decipher what Cody had just said. He knew that I would ask where Trent was, so he already told me before I asked him.

"So, you want to play some chess?" I asked him.

"I got nothing better to do."

He put down his book and went over to his bag. He grabbed his folded chess board and brown cardboard boxes that had chess pieces inside them.

We took them out and began setting the pieces in their respective positions.

"Were you black or white last time?" Cody asked, confused.

"I really don't care." I said. It was true. I play pretty much the same with whatever side I choose. I do play marginally better with white, but it is not a significant enough difference to warrant me to play only white.

Also, I could use this opportunity to hone my skills with the black pieces.

We had set up the pieces when Owen came to watch. We quietly played the first couple of moves, and then Owen broke the silence.

"This looks pretty cool. Can I play?" Owen asked.

"Once we're done, Owen." I told him.

"But that might take hours judging by the rate you guys are playing at!" He said.

"We've already started Owen."

"It's okay. Let's teach our bud how to play. After all, who knows if we'll have time tomorrow?" Cody said.

I studied the board. I was winning by a couple of pieces. Cody wanted a restart! That's why he wanted to clear the board.

"Fine." I said. We had a lot of time and nothing better to do anyway.

So Cody and I started to explain the rules of chess to our newbie Owen. I took a while, but he learned a lot faster than Izzy did. And by 'a lot' faster, I mean _a lot frickin _faster.

Seriously, I think Izzy _still _doesn't have a clue about the rules despite Cody and me both going over it about fifteen times.

"Cody, I think you should play him." I said.

"Alright." Cody said.

"Let's do this. I feel a victory coming on." Owen declared.

He lost within twenty moves.

"I would make a quip about how bad you lost, but you're not even worth the effort." Cody said.

"I guess I kind of overestimated my abilities."

"The master always wins and the apprentice always loses bro." Cody said confidently.

"But Qui-Gon Jinn dies and Obi-Wan Kenobi lives." I retorted.

"Qui-Who and Obi-What?" Owen asked

"It's nerd stuff." Cody replied.

"And besides, Obi-Wan killed Anakin anyway."

"But you said that the master _always _wins and I just proved that he doesn't."

We continued to argue, or rather, _debate _for some more time as Owen looked on confused.

"All of your nonsense is making my head hurt. I need to sleep." He said, heading off to bed.

Cody and I recovered from our argument- I mean, _debate_, and we then started resetting the pieces so we could play a game without being interrupted this time.

"So what were you talking about with Harold?" I asked him.

"Oh, you know. Just some nerdy stuff. I wanted to learn more about the campers that aren't on our team, and I figured Harold would be easy since we have some stuff in common."

I then got the third item on my list for today.

"So, Heather accidentally spilled the beans on her alliance with Lindsay yesterday…" I started.

"Two chicks vote for the same person. Big deal."

"They voted for me."

"And obviously failed. I think we should be more worried about the next challenge than some dumb two-person alliance."

"You're probably right." I said. Still, they _were_ gunning for me.

"Dude, I'm kind of worried about Gwen and me. I don't know if she'll like me for who I am. I don't think that she'll like me _period._"

"What happened to the Codemeister?" I asked him.

"It's been ten days and we've only talked twice, the first of which she kicked me out of her cabin."

"I still remember that."

"I've been passive for too long! Tomorrow is the day that I make my move. I'm gonna charm the pants off of her!"

"I wish you good luck, Cody. And one more thing."

"What?"

"Checkmate."

"WHAT!?"

He had been so engrossed in talking to me that he had completely forgotten about the game.

"La-hoo-sa-her." I taunted him Jim Carrey style then I climbed up to my bed.

I had accomplished all of the things on my to-do list, beaten Cody at chess and had managed not to die as a result Chef's food. It was a good day, but now it was time for good night.

* * *

I want to add that this chapter also took a while because it was only some thousand-odd words when I first wrote it. I had to spend some time thinking about what else to add before I could publish it. Don't worry about the next chapter though; I can assure you that it will not be short.


	13. Wawanakwa's Got Talent!

Do you know that if you say 'gullible' backwards, it sounds like 'potato'?

Total Drama © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

* * *

**_Total Drama Redemption_**

**Day Eleven (11)****  
**

When I got up the next day, the sight that I saw was an unimaginable one. I pinched myself to make sure that I wasn't dreaming. I wasn't. How could this happen? There's no way this can be right!

I was the first one up.

No frickin way.

Chris's voice sounded on the intercom, interrupting my enjoyment.

"Alright campers, enough beauty sleep. Time to show us what you're made of!"

"Molecules." Cody grumbled, getting out of bed. Soon after, Trent and Owen also got up.

We got up and followed Chris to wherever the heck he was leading us to. There was not much talking going on because we were all pretty darn tired and pissed at being woken up so early.

Chris led us to a place where a big stage lay. There were also two sets of wooden bleachers that were situated next to each other.

"Gophers, you are on the bleachers on the right, Bass left." Chris said, motioning to the said bleachers.

We took our respective seats. I sat next to Owen.

"Gwen! Saved you a seat." Trent said. The Goth sat next to him.

Cody took a seat next to Trent and leaned back, failing (and falling) in the process. He then pretended like nothing had happened.

I remembered Cody's declaration from yesterday. Obviously, his first attempt had failed.

"Welcome to our brand new deluxe state-of-the-art outdoor amphitheatre!"

_You mean 'welcome to this second-hand amphitheatre that I brought on Amazon because I use the rest of the money on hair gel.'_

"Okay, today's challenge is a summer camp favorite: a talent contest!"

"Yes! Awesome!" Owen said. Chris explained the rules.

"Each team has eight hours to pick their three most talented campers. These three will represent them in the show tonight. Sing, dance, juggle. Anything goes…as long as it's legal."

Duncan snapped his fingers at that last part.

"You'll be judged by our resident talent scout, former DJ, BJ and rap legend: Grand Master Chef."

"BJ?" Cody asked.

"It's not what you think it is." I told him.

"Who'll show his approval via the Chef-o-Meter." Chris said as a rectangular meter with nine bars flashed across the stage. "The team that loses will send one camper home tonight. Good luck." The host then left the stage.

"First things first, let's go eat." Owen said. We all agreed except for Heather.

"We're supposed to be picking our three members." The queen bee said.

"We have time. It's no big deal." Said Leshawna.

We all went to the cafeteria. The Killer Bass were also there.

I grabbed some food and sat down net to Cody.

"So I see that your plan to impress Gwen have failed so far."

"I still have the whole day. Just wait and watch."

Lindsay waved at Tyler, resulting in her getting scolded by Heather.

I knew what was going to go down tonight. If I didn't step in, Heather would read Gwen's diary at the talent show, causing us to lose. I had to stop it somehow.

We finished eating and went to our cabins to practice while the Killer Bass went to the stage.

Heather blew her whistle. When did she get a whistle? "Okay, I'm the team captain so here is how it's going to work."

"Wait. Who said you were team captain?" Gwen intervened.

"She did, just now." Lindsay said.

"Lindsay, Beth and I took a vote and I won."

"Making them vote for you isn't exactly democratic." Said Gwen.

Trent came along and handed her a muffin.

"Trent, you're cool with me leading this project, aren't you?" Heather asked.

"We're a _team. _Can someone remind me again why we need a captain?" I said before Trent could talk.

"We should choose by popular vote. Everyone who is interested in participating, stand in a line."

Only Cody and Owen got up.

"We're gonna need more people." Cody said.

Heather got up. Oh smokes.

"Hey Lindsay, you said during the first challenge that you thought this was going to be a talent contest. Got any talents?" I asked her.

"I'm a cheerleader at my high school. Maybe I could do a cheerleading routine!"

The blonde got up. Beth also stood up.

"Too bad Jake was voted off. He could have ripped off his shirt as an act." Lindsay said.

I got up to perform. I had to prove that my talents were way better than Anti-Me. But what could I do? What talents did I have?

Izzy also wanted to take part.

"I want to go first." Owen said excitedly.

He grabbed a soda bottle, chugged it in one go and then burped out "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZeeeeeeeeeed!"

The boys gave him thumbs up, but the girls didn't.

"Do you know how hard it is to burp the entire alphabet in one go?" Trent told the girls.

"I can also do Beethoven's Fifth." Owen said, pulling down his pants.

Even the guys were disgusted at that.

Gwen left, saying that she was going "anywhere that's not here."

"I'll go next!" Trent said. Gwen had convinced him to take part.

He strummed his guitar to the tune of 'Wonderwall' as some of us sang along.

"I won't actually play this at the show. Just wanted you guys to watch me play my guitar."

"Dude, that was awesome!" Cody said.

Everyone raised their hands for Trent to take part.

"Thanks guys." Trent said.

"First camper has been decided and we still have six-and-a-half hours to go. I think we have time for a break." I said. Everyone else agreed, and we left.

Heather grabbed Lindsay and ordered her to do something.

I knew the blonde would get distracted by a certain jock anyway, so I decided not to intervene. But how could I stop Heather from stealing Gwen's diary?

Maybe I could steal it first? Just like in National Treasure. But what if I get caught? I would definitely get the boot.

I had to stop her from participating somehow.

Our five minutes were up and it was time to head back. Cody and Gwen weren't there, but we went on without them.

Next up was Izzy, did what she called "the dance of the rattlesnake"

That dance was pretty sexy.

_What are you talking about Noah? She's a crazy nutcase._

Five of us wanted Izzy in the talent show.

"Oh I don't care about the talent show. I just wanted to dance." The redhead said. We all groaned.

"I'm nexth" Beth said. She took out a match, lit two batons on fire, stepped to the middle and started twirling.

"Are you sure this is safe?" Heather asked the baton-twirler.

"It's okay. I've been practicing." Beth then threw a baton in the air, followed by a second. We all dived under our chairs as the batons came down, burning a hole in the ground.

"I kind of missed the catching class." Beth admitted after a while.

"I would love to burn down that stupid amphitheatre, but we would lose the contest. Sorry Beth." I said.

"That'sh okay."

"Me next! Me next!" Lindsay called out.

She had some pom-poms in her hands as she did her cheerleading routine.

"That was pretty good." Massive understatement by Trent.

It was unanimously decided that Lindsay should be the second of three people that would take part in the talent show later on tonight.

Heather was next with a ballet performance.

Trent, Leshawna, Beth and Lindsay wanted her to perform, while Izzy, Owen and I didn't.

"My dance was way better than hers."

"But Izzy, you said you didn't want to perform."

"I don't."

"Ballet is pretty boring." Owen said.

"But burping the alphabet is _so _cool, isn't it?" Heather said.

"Heck yeah!" Owen said.

"Guys, stop fighting." Leshawna stepped in between them.

"Heather, you are on the wait list." She continued.

"Wait-listed? What is this, Canada's Got Talent?"

"Let's wait until all the other people have performed. Speaking of which, where's Cody? He said he wanted to try out."

As if on cue, Cody emerged. He was following Gwen.

"I won't even ask." The latter muttered, jumping over the burnt hole in the ground.

Cody rushed to open the door for Gwen.

"Look! The first hook-up of the season." Taunted Heather.

"Oh yeah. We were going at it big time. I need a swim just to cool off." Gwen replied. She then slammed the door and then slammed it open again, this time in her bathing suit.

"Gwen! Wait up! I'll come with you." Trent called out to her.

"Sure!" Gwen said. "I mean whatever."

The two went off to the dock to swim. Cody was distraught.

"Cheer up, dude. You want to go swimming as well?" Owen asked the guy.

"Sure, I guess."

"Hey Noah! Are you coming?" Cody asked.

"No thanks."

"I guess this means break." Heather said.

The rest of us went our separate ways. With all of my roommates gone, the only one I could talk to was Izzy.

"Why didn't you want to participate?"

"I hate performing in front of other people."

"Stage fright _is_ the number one fear in the world."

"Oh I'm not scared. I just don't want to be judged on how well I perform. It's like high school all over again."

And at that last part, I knew what talent I was going to showcase.

"Izzy, you're a genius!", and hugged her involuntarily.

"Hehe…sorry." I bolted off.

TO THE CONFESSIONAL!

"Okay, Izzy's snake-dance was pretty hot, but I don't like her, I swear. I mean, I like her as a friend and she's a good teammate and she has a nice personality and" I stopped, realizing that I was making myself sound like a fool just like Owen had. "Ignore everything that I just said."

I left the Confession Cam.

Cody, Owen, Trent and Gwen had come back. They were all soaking wet.

Oh crud, I had forgotten about the diary! Heather had already taken it!

"There are only two hours left people! It's time for the remaining people to try out." Heather said.

Cody went up.

"What's your talent geek?" Heather asked him.

"I can recite Pi to a thousand places: 3.14159265" We stopped him before he could continue.

"3.14 is the score that you'll get for that pathetic talent." Heather said.

"Actually, the scale goes from 1 to 10 and there are no numbers in between." Cody said.

However, the crowd agreed with Heather. Only I voted for Cody and that too because he was my friend.

Cody slumped down on his seat.

So I tried out last.

"I'd like to recite one of my most favorite orations."

"An oration? Are you kidding me?"

"I'll have you know, Heather, that I received an A+ for this very oration."

"This isn't some high school assignment you bookworm, it's a talent show. There's no way Chef will like some dumb recitation."

I ignored her and said the whole oration.

"I'll have to wear a toga when I actually say it."

"What makes you so sure that you'll get picked?" Heather asked me.

The votes were five to four. Cody, Owen, Trent, Izzy and Gwen wanted me in. Leshawna, Heather, Beth and Lindsay thought otherwise.

"I guess I'm in." I said.

"Wait! I want a revote. I should be in!" Heather said.

"Okay, fine. We'll have a revote. Anyone that wants Heather in, raise your right hand and anyone who wants we in, raise your left."

Of the eight hands raised, five were those of the 'left' variety.

"Told you I'm in." I told Ms. Popular. And not only was I in, but Heather was out.

The three of us selected (Trent, Lindsay and myself) went off to practice. I was reciting my lines, Lindsay was reciting her cheers and Trent was reciting a song that he had written.

"Alright campers! I hoped you picked your three best because it's time to get this talent show on the road." The loudspeaker blared.

Trent, Lindsay and I went backstage while the rest of our team sat in the bleachers.

We saw DJ, Bridgette and Geoff backstage with us. They would compete for the Bass.

I was wearing a white toga and had a laurel wreath on my head.

"Welcome to the very first Camp Wawanakwa talent contest! Where six campers will showcase their mad skills and desperately try not to humiliate themselves."

"Ah Chris, as sadistic as ever I see." I said.

"Wait, we haven't decided the order yet, dudes!" Geoff exclaimed.

"First up for the Screaming Gophers, it's Noah!"

"Perfect. Who _doesn't_ like going first on their team? I get first crack at humiliation."

Despite my sarcastic attitude, I was feeling butterflies in my stomach.

_It's okay Noah. You're gonna be fine. _

Thanks, brain.

_But look at all those people. They're all staring at you. It's like they all want you to fail. Oh wait, the Bass DO._

Screw you brain. The eyes of thirteen campers were all upon me. I cleared my throat, and began to orate.

"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; / I come to bury Caesar not to praise him. / The evil that men do lives after them; / The good is oft interred in their bones so let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus / Hath told you Caesar was ambitious: / If it were so, it was a grievous fault, / And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it. / Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest- / For Brutus is an honorable man; / So are they all, all honorable men- / Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. / He was my friend, faithful and just to me: / But Brutus says he was ambitious; / And Brutus is an honorable man."

I continued on. It was like I was in high school all over again. My face was staring at the campers, but my mind was somewhere else, thinking about the speech. Words rolled effortlessly out of my tongue as I recited the oration like a kid singing his favorite song. I breezed through it, having much experience with Shakespearean literature.

"My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, / And I must pause till it come back to me."

Everyone clapped and I took a bow.

"Cool speech Noah." Chris said. "Let's see what Grandmaster Chef thinks of it!"

I looked at the meter at the top of the stage. It filled up to six bars.

"A six. Not bad."

"A six!? Are you kidding? That's total bullcrap!"

"Arguing with me will not increase your score! Now go sit down!" He shoved me off the stage.

I left the stage and sat down next to Izzy and Cody.

"How did you do that?" Cody asked.

"It all seems like a blur at the moment. I feel like I sped through it." I answered.

"First up for the Killer Bass, make some noise for the big guy. DJ!"

DJ was doing a ribbon dance. He was doing pretty well, but it was hard for a guy to dance elegantly, even if it _was _DJ. He messed up at the end when the ribbon got caught in his legs, and he failed to recover after that.

The Killer Bass still clapped, however.

"Dainty and yet masculine. Let's see what Grandmaster Chef thinks!

The Chef-o-Meter lit up to four bars.

"Not much. So with two down and four acts to go, it's the Screaming Gophers _screaming _ahead."

I expected to get more points, but at least I had given my team the lead. Now to see if they could sustain it.

"Next on deck, it's Bridgette!" What? Wasn't Trent supposed to be next?

After a while, Bridgette came out. She was doing a handstand. She let out a burp.

Cody and Owen snickered at this. We like it when girls act guy-ish sometimes.

She let out another burp, but this one was followed by vomit. She then let out even more vomit. This one sprayed Owen.

IMA FIRIN' MAH LAZOR! BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

I shouldn't have joked, because I was the net one drenched in vomit. It was like World War V. And by 'V', I don't mean 5 in Roman numerals, but 'V' as in Vomit.

"Hey, puke on your own boyfriend!" Lindsay yelled. Bridgette had slipped on her vomit and landed in Tyler's arms. Although I don't think Geoff would enjoy it if Bridgette puked on him.

Drat! I need to stop getting ahead of myself.

"Clean up in aisles three, four, five and six. In the meantime, we'll take a short break to hose the joint down."

My white toga was white no longer. I took it off. Good thing I was wearing my shirt underneath. Also, good thing the toga wasn't mine. I found it in the prop room.

I still had my laurel wreath on. Hey! Where was it?

"All hail queen Izzy!" The redhead was wearing it!

"Izzy, that's not a toy!"

"You don't need it anymore, right?" She got me there.

Chef stepped onto the stage with a big garden hose in his hands. He washed away all of the vomit and then sprayed all of us.

"Your stench is worse than 'Nam!" He said. Now we were soaking wet.

"Welcome back to the Total Drama Island Talent Show Extravaganza!"

"But Chip, we didn't even go anywhere." Said the only person that would mistake Chris's name.

"Bridgette's puke-fest registered a five by Grandmaster Chef! The Bass now have the lead."

Seriously? I perform a well executed oration. She pukes all over the stage and I only get one more point than her?

"Let's hear it for Trent! Take it away my bro."

We clapped for our second act.

Trent strummed his guitar and sung a love-song to an anonymous person at camp. It was pretty good.

I wish I had learned how to play an instrument. I had taken piano classes as a child, but it seemed to boring at the time. Maybe I should have stuck with it?

"Nice work dude. I'm liking your style. And so does Grandmaster Chef!" He had received a seven for his performance. Very well deserved.

We clapped for the musician.

"Alright, quit hogging my light, buddy!" Chris shoved him off much like he had done with me.

Trent high-fived the rest of the guys and sat down in the bleachers next to Gwen. The loner tried to look indifferent, but I knew what she really felt.

"So two-thirds of this contest is over and the Gophers have a four point lead. Now, for their final act, Lindsay!"

The girl was dressed in her regular clothing. The only thing that was different was her pom-poms. She jumped up and down, chanting cheers.

"Gophers, Gophers, we're the best! We'll put those Bass to the test! Those Killer Bass, they really suck! They won in dodgeball because of pure luck! Gophers, Gophers, sure can Scream. We are Total Drama Island's best team! Gophers, Gophers, we got class! Tonight, we're gonna kick some Bass! Gooooooooooooo Gophers!"

Everyone was staring intently at Lindsay. Not because of her words, but because she was bouncing up and down. And when a girl with big badonkadonks is jumping up and down…

Blood was spurting from Cody's nose as he frantically ran to the bathroom to clean it up.

"That was a great uh… performance, Lindsay. What does Chef have to say?"

The Chef-o-Meter went up to a score of six. "So with their three acts done, the Screaming Gophers have a total score of nineteen!" How did Lindsay's boob-fest get the same score as my well spoken oration? The world may never know.

"The Killer Bass only have nine points. Their last act will need to blow Chef away as they need a perfect score of ten. The final act for the Bass is Geoff! Let's see if he can pull this off."

"Geoff's a cool guy, but there's no way in hell the Bass are winning." Cody said.

We all expected the party animal to come out soon. The front stage was empty for a while.

"What's going on back there?"

"Is he scared?"

"No way, Geoff would never back out."

There were more murmurs. After what seemed like eternity, a lanky nerd stepped out from behind the curtain.

"Harold? Pfft. We totally got this in the bag." Owen said.

"Who won the last contest, genius?" I asked him.

Those were the last words uttered by anyone as we watched the last performance in silence.

Harold had showcased his mad skills yet again when he performed some wicked beat-boxing. You know your act is awesome when the other team cheers for you afterwards.

"…"

"Holy cow!" Owen said.

"Wicked beat-boxing dude." Said the host. "Check it out. Grandmaster Chef gives you the full ten points, making you the best act of the six!"

Courtney and Bridgette hugged their teammate and the rest of the Bass went over to congratulate him.

"So the scores are now tied."

The cheering had now died down.

"For the tie-breaker, both teams must choose one last contestant to participate in the talent show! So go ahead and choose. You've got ten minutes."

"Let's see… Beth is a no-no, as well as Cody." Heather said.

"Izzy should go!" I told her.

"I've already told you that I'm not going and that is final!" The redhead screamed.

"Owen, you have to go man. You can win this." I told him. Heather could not be allowed onto that stage. Not only would Gwen get hurt, but so would Cody.

"Let's have a vote, y'all." Leshawna said.

And we agreed. Cody, Trent and I chose Owen. Then Izzy lifted up her hands to also support Owen.

"Burping is way more awesome than ballet."

There were four supporters for both Heather and Owen.

"DJ tried to dance and look at what to him. I think we stand a better chance with Owen." I said.

"Hmmmm. You got a point." Leshawna said. She raised her hand in support of Owen, as did Gwen.

"I'm in? Thank you guys so much! I've always wanted to be on a talent show!" He crushed us all with his hug. He then let loose a big one.

"Just be sure not to do that on stage, kay?" Gwen said, holding her nose.

We went back to the talent show stage. Chris was standing there.

"I see that you guys have picked Owen." He said.

The Killer Bass had picked Tyler to compete.

"Alright, here's how this is going to work: both of you will go on stage and do your performances at the _same _time. The one that Chef thinks is better will win the challenge. As for the losers, someone is going home."

Owen gulped. I patted his back. "You got this bro."

"Why is the pressure always on me?"

Owen went up to the stage, holding a soda bottle in his hand. Tyler also went up, but instead of a soda bottle, he had in his hand a yo-yo.

"Aaaand GO!" Chris shouted.

Tyler began to do tricks with his yo-yo. Owen was chugging the bottle. Tyler was 'Walking-the-Dog' when Owen let lose his belch.

"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWYZeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeed!"

Tyler seemed unfazed by this and began switching the hands holding the yo-yo. He began to increase the speed, but at the end, he dropped the yo-yo.

If he had successfully completed that trick, he would have no-doubt won, but was it enough.  
"The winner of this challenge is…" Chris paused to increase the tension.

…

…

…

…

…

"Tyler! Though they had the lead, the Screaming Gophers have been trampled by the Killer Bass!" I don't know how winning in a tie-break can be called 'trampling' but we had still lost.

"Gophers, pick your favorite loser, and then I'll see you at the bonfire."

We headed back to the cabins.

"No official elimination meeting, I guess." Cody said.

We set up our chess pieces. It had become a habit now.

"His name is _Grandmaster _Chef, but I doubt he could beat even Owen at chess."

Owen was clueless at Cody's joke.

"A grandmaster is the highest title in chess that one can achieve." I explained.

"Oooooooooooooooh. I get it now." Owen began to chuckle to himself, but he still had a worried look on his face.

"I am once again on the chopping block." I announced. "Hey Cody, how does it feel when you are the only one in the cabin that is safe?" He was the only one that didn't take part in the challenge.

"One is never _truly safe._" He said. "Who knows who will go and who will stay?"

"The Claaaaaaaaaaaaw." I said. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Our game ended in a draw much like two nights ago because we were focusing on the elimination.

Then Owen farted.

We all rushed outside. There were still a few minutes before the bonfire ceremony started. I went over to the Confession Cam.

"So we lost the challenge. Again. And I am partly to blame for it. Again. I can't believe Chef only gave my performance a six! A flipping six! Can you guys out there believe that? And it was even worse that Chef thinks that Lindsay's cheerleading is the same as the great Shakespeare! Those things were bouncing around more than" I struggled to think of a metaphor. What bounces around a lot? It's so simple, Noah. The answer is "Boobies!"

I quickly covered my mouth and left, I left the Confessional, not wanting to believe that I had said that last word. Great. Chris was going to take this out of context, wasn't he?

I went over to the bonfire ceremony. It was time to vote.

The voting box had undergone the changes that I had suggested. There was now a big padlock on the box. There was a small slit in the box that was big enough to put some folded paper into, but not big enough to fit a person's hand.

"So Lindsay, Trent, Owen and I on the chopping block. Trent and Owen are my bros. I vote Lindsay because I don't think she deserved six points. Izzy's dance was way hotter than Lindsay's cheerleading." I once again covered my mouth and left.

_You just couldn't keep it short and sweet, could you, Noah?_

I sat down on the stumps, cursing my luck at saying things that I didn't mean to say on national television. Make that _international _television.

Firetruck.

After all of the voting that we had done today, this would be our final one. Soon, everyone was finished. The results of the voting were coming up.

"Kudos to you all for an incredible night of entertainment! Music, drama, barfing. I have only nine marshmallows on this plate. When I call your name, come pick up a marshmallow. The person whose name does not get called must immediately walk the Dock of Shame, board the Boat of Losers and go home. And you can't come back. Ever. The marshmallows go to…"

"Heather."

"Beth."

"Gwen."

"Leshawna."

"Izzy."

I was pretty panicked when four of the final five were my friends.

"Cody." Phew, my best bud's safe.

"Trent." Awesome performance, dude.

"Noah." My name had been called again. But Owen and Lindsay were in the bottom two.

"And the last marshmallow goes to…"

He paused for a very long while. About three times as long as he had paused before announcing that the winners of this challenge were the Killer Bass."

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

"Lindsay."

"Yay!" The blonde squealed in delight and grabbed her marshmallow.

Owen sulked. Poor guy. He had received the first marshmallow after the previous challenge, but now, he had not received a marshmallow at all.

"If it makes you feel any better, I would have totally picked you over Tyler's dumb yo-yo tricks." Cody said.

"Hey! Taylor's not dumb!" Lindsay yelled before she realized that Heather was listening, and quickly shushed herself.

"Farewell Owen, hope this doesn't get you too down." I told him.

"Well, now I know how it feels to be in the bottom two. Unfortunately, I won't live to tell the tale."

"Time to catch the Boat of Losers, bra!" Chris interrupted.

"Later bra!" Heather taunted, chewing on her marshmallow.

Owen was going to head to his room to get his stuff, when Chris told him that Chef had already packed it and that the stuff was now on the Boat of Losers.

"I'll miss you all waaaaaaaaaaaah!" Owen began to wail.

"It is dangerous to go alone. Take this!" Cody said, tossing him a chocolate bar.

"I don't wanna leave. I wanna stay here and com-oh! is this a manola bar?" The big teen chomped down on the candy bar as the rest of us headed back to our cabins.

"So it's down to us three guys, huh? Man, why do the males always get voted off on our team?" Trent asked.

"Who knows?" I replied, climbing into my bed.

I had survived yet another elimination. I repeated the question/answer I had just said.

"Who knows?"

"Who knows what tomorrow holds, or who is being voted out, or which team will win?" Even with my knowledge of the future, I didn't know the answers to these questions.

I had stopped Heather from reading the diary, but one of my friends was voted off as a result. Was it all worth it? Only time will tell.

* * *

So Owen was voted off. Raise your hand if you saw that coming. Now put your hand back down because I know you're lying.

In case you didn't know, Noah's oration was from the play Julius Caesar written by William Shakespeare. In the play, Antony wants to avenge Caesar's death and uses sarcasm and clever wit to do so.

And thus ends my educational speech for the day. See you guys later! Peace out!


	14. Framed

I was reading through some of the older chapters and noticed some grammatical errors. I think I changed most of the major ones.

If you didn't notice, I have decided to actually title the chapters. Let's see how long I can keep that up before I get bored, lazy or uncreative.

I know you guys don't like the free days so much, but this one in particular is very important.

Also, if you are going to ask questions, please log in. I cannot PM guests.

On to the chapter.

* * *

Total Drama Island © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

* * *

_**Total Drama Redemption**_

**Day Twelve (12)**

Damn Harold and his mad skills.

Not only did he make his team win twice in a row, but he also helped the Killer Bass achieve a win which ultimately resulted in Owen get eliminated.

To make matters worse, unlike yesterday, I was not the first one to wake up. In fact, I was the last.

I headed over to the washrooms to brush my teeth and take a shower. I still reeked of vomit from last night's talent show. I shuddered just thinking about it.

I went over to the Mess Hall, where there was some murmuring going on. Everyone was staring at something. I turned to see what it was.

In the middle of the Cafeteria, some words had been written. The substance used for the writing was ketchup. It read:

'GWEN'S DIARY OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED'

There was also a red arrow pointing to a dark green book, which I assumed was the diary. On top of the book was a page that had been ripped out, and I was 99.99999 percent sure that it was from the diary.

I did not know what to make of this, and neither did anyone else in the Mess Hall. Oh man! I had forgotten all about the fact that Heather had stolen the diary yesterday.

_You thought you could just stop Heather from participating in the challenge and that would be enough to stop her from divulging Gwen's secrets?_

Yes brain. Yes I did.

The murmurs and whispers continued.

And then Gwen showed up.

She immediately froze when she saw her name on the Cafeteria floor. She was even more tensed when she saw her diary also lying there. She was about to go grab it when a voice sounded.

"My my my, what do we have here?" Someone said. It was Chris. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse.

He went over to the diary and began to read the torn page. Sure, don't bother returning a _private _diary to the owner and instead read it right in front of them. Simply wonderful.

"Dear diary, today some loser played his guitar thinking it woo me. It was charming really. His music sucked. I would have told it right to his face, but I wouldn't want to hurt his feelings. I hope he stops bothering me and minds his own business. There's no way I'd fall for some lame loser like him. How did his crappy guitar song get a seven from Chef? It was complete and total garbage. Barf."

Chris paused.

"Wow Gwen. That's pretty harsh." He said. No frickin way.

I began searching for a certain someone.

I looked around and saw that all eighteen teenagers had shown up. I haven't a clue when they all arrived but they obviously had. The person that I was searching for was among them. It was Trent. And he had heard the whole damn thing. In his face was a mixture of depression and anger. He turned to the exit and was about to leave the Mess Hall when Gwen ran over to him and blocked his path.

"Trent, I didn't actually write that."

"Really?" Chris asked. He examined another page from the diary. "The handwriting looks spot-on."

"It wasn't me. I'll prove it. What I actually wrote is still in the diary!" Gwen exclaimed.

She grabbed the book from Chris's hands and flipped through it. She came to the latest page. But there was a problem. There was no page. It was torn out. And the page that was already torn out fit perfectly into this section.

"Coincidence? I think not!" Chris said. Gwen would never write such a thing. Would she?

"Trent, I didn't do it! I swear!"

"It's alright Gwen. You don't have to act all innocent. I know how you really feel." Trent said. He then stormed off.

I never recalled seeing him so angry.

Gwen then turned to the rest of us, who were watching the scene without saying a word.

"You did this, didn't you?" She asked, turning to Harold. "I bet you snuck into our cabin and stole it. You wanted to cause some tension among us, am I right? You wanted to turn us against each other. Tell me!" She was irate.

"What?" Harold was confused, and very intimidated. "I didn't do it, I swear. I don't even know where your cabin is. I would never do something so heinous."

The Goth girl then turned to me. Oh crap.

"Did you do this?"

"Oh sure. Just because the text is written like Harry Potter, assume that a bookworm did it." I said what I thought. Spoke my mind.

She grabbed my collar. "Answer the damn question." She didn't have time for my wisecracks.

"No, I didn't do it, okay? I have nothing against you, and I'm friends with Trent. I'm innocent, I tell ya."

She studied my facial expressions. She wanted to see if I was lying, which I obviously wasn't.

She let go of me. Phew. She then looked at Cody. Uh oh. Not good.

"You did it. I'm sure of it!" She said, pointing her finger at the tech-geek.

"What?" Cody was even more confused than Harold. He was still trying to comprehend the events thus far.

"I can just see it happening. You noticed that I didn't pay attention to you, so you snuck into my cabin, grabbed my diary, mimicked my handwriting and made _me _look like a bad person."

"But I didn't…"

"You think I'd buy that after you kept bugging me so much about my diary yesterday? Don't lie Cody. I know you're guilty."

"Gwen, you have to believe me."

"I'm sorry Cody, but I don't."

She paused for a while and then continued. "I knew you were a pervert and a wannabe, but I never thought you would sink this low."

She left the room. Among the group, someone was grinning a wicked grin at all the drama that was unfolding between her eyes. Her sparkling, evil eyes.

"Wow Cody, I never expected this from you. You really shouldn't meddle in other people's private business." It was Heather. She bumped the geek on her way out.

Cody just slumped. He wanted to say something, but he couldn't. He also left. I wanted to talk to him, but he wasn't in the mood. What could I say to cheer him up?

The teenagers that were remaining ate breakfast in silence. They were all in thought. They were most likely trying to figure out whodunnit.

"Whodunnit?" Izzy asked me. I had only now noticed that she was sitting next to me.

"I have no idea." I said.

But I did have an idea. A very clear idea. It was Heather. Who else? She stole Gwen's diary while the loner was out swimming. And because she was denied from participating in the talent show, she switched the writing and made it look as if Cody as the culprit.

Usually in mysteries such as this, the difficulty lies in finding out who was responsible for the crime. But in this case, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Heather was responsible. The problem lied in convincing the rest of my team.

"Do you think Chris did it? You know, to boost up the ratings or some stuff like that?" Izzy asked me.

"I wouldn't be surprised." Chris would do practically anything for ratings. _Anything._

"All of this thinking is making my head hurt. I'm going to bed. I woke up too early today."

I hadn't finished my plate. I didn't feel like finishing it either. I slid my tray to where Owen was sitting. A nonexistent Owen.

Since my human trash compactor for all of Chef's food was now gone, I got up and threw away all of Chef's food into the trash can. (But only after making sure that Chef didn't notice, of course).

I was about to head out when Chris stepped back into the room.

"Hello again campers. Today would have been the day of your next challenge, but seeing as there is already enough drama going on. Which I am _loving _by the way, I have postponed your next challenge to tomorrow. Ciao." Aw, how generous.

"I swear he did it." Izzy said.

There was some finger pointing going on throughout the Mess Hall. Blatant accusations were being thrown left and right. But the fact of the matter was that none of the people in the room knew who the thief was.

Except for one: me.

I left the Cafeteria like I had intended to do before Chris made the announcement. (I was now hearing it again except on the megaphone).

I went to the Gopher cabin. Trent was inside.

He was lying flat on his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

"I thought we both had something."

I didn't know if he was talking to himself or to me.

"But if this is how she really feels, then so be it!"

He slammed his fist down on the bed.

"Careful. That bed's already creaky. It won't last long. I think it was made in China."

Trent jumped down from his bunk. It was then that I realized that he was actually resting on Justin's bunk up till now.

"Noah, what would you do if you were in my situation?"

The question came as quite a surprise to me. It was then that I started wondering. What _would _I do? Obviously with my future knowledge I knew that Heather was guilty. But putting that aside, I would definitely be heartbroken like Trent was right now.

"I wouldn't jump to quick conclusions. Just play the waiting game."

"I guess."

I left the cabin because Trent wasn't the person I was looking for.

I saw Cody sitting by the dock.

He didn't notice me approaching. I tapped him on the back.

"Cody."

He turned around. The first things that I noticed were his eyes. They were bloodshot. And watery. He had been crying.

He managed to utter a weak "hi."

"Were you crying?"

He wiped the tears from his eyes and sniffled his nose.

"Have you ever been in that position when you were wrongly accused of a crime and everyone else thought you were guilty?"

Why was everyone trying to put me in their shoes?

"Yeah, actually."

"Really? When?"

"One time when I was young, our whole stash of cookies went missing. Everyone blamed it on me. I don't even like sweets that much and even if I was the youngest, I still wouldn't eat the whole jar."

"And then what happened?"

"We brought a new cookie jar and my mom never let me eat cookies again. You know, I never did figure out who actually ate the cookies. It's one of the mysteries of life, I guess."

"Do _you _think I'm guilty?" He asked me with his tear-filled eyes.

It was quite sad. If only Heather could see how much she had hurt my friend.

"Cody. I've known you ever since day one and I can say with absolute certainty that a guy like you would never do something as mean as that."

"If only everyone else thought the same way about me."

"They aren't super close friends with you. Still, they shouldn't be quick to judge."

We were silent for a while. The gentle sound of the waves lapping against the rocks had a soothing effect.

I broke the melodious harmony with my voice.

"Whoever the hell is responsible for doing this Cody, they will pay. Dearly."

"I don't want to drag you into this mess."

But I _had _been dragged in. I was in the same room as Cody and Trent. I would have somehow gotten involved anyway.

"I can't just let it slide. Otherwise everyone will think that _you _did it."

"And that's bad."

He spoke again.

"It's just really tough for me. Even if she didn't want to be my girlfriend, I at least thought we could be friends."

We sat in silence for a little longer.

"C'mon. Let's get out of here." I told him.

He agreed. We both got up and headed towards the cabins.

"Oh snap, we forgot lunch!" Cody said.

"Good thing too." I said.

We chuckled a little and headed opened the cabin door. And who else would be inside but Trent?

"Hi dude." Cody said.

"Have you been… crying?" Trent asked him.

"No. He just got some sand in his eye, that's all." I said quickly.

"Still hurts." Hopefully Cody was talking about his eye and not his heart.

"Hope it gets better." Trent said.

"Me too." I said.

Trent dozed off pretty quickly. It was only evening. I guess he wasn't hungry for dinner. Then again, who was?

_Owen._

Thanks for bringing that up brain. I was just trying to forget about him.

Cody was about to head off to sleep as well, but I stopped him.

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

"I'm not in the mood for dinner."

"Not that. Chess."

"Oh, right. Totally slipped my mind." He went over to get the board as we set up the pieces for the twelfth time in twelve days.

Before we could even say anything, Cody lost.

"Two-move mate? Fool's mate? Cody! I thought you said you were chess captain at your school?"

"I am. Guess I was caught off guard." He was still thinking about the diary.

"At least it wasn't Tom Riddle's diary." I said, trying to jar him out of his sadness. The dude was feeling pretty guilty for something that he had no role in whatsoever.

"Huh? Oh, yeah."

He hadn't paid attention to a word that I had said.

"So, rematch?"

"No rematches. Only one game per night, no matter how short it may be."

"So you lead for the first time then." He said.

He was right. I now led 3-2. Up till now, I had been playing catch up. All of this didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but what the heck?

"Well in that case, good night." Cody said. He was trying to appear cheerful, but I knew what was really going on in that mind of his.

He went off to sleep. I was about to doze off as well when I remembered that I had forgotten something.

I exited the cabin. Noah. I hope you are aware that the mission that you are about to embark on may have serious consequences if you are caught. You might die. Or even worse, get exposed to peanuts!

"I know." I muttered to myself before setting off on my adventure.

I went to the Killer Bass cabin and knocked on the door.

Chris said we weren't allowed inside the cabins. He never said we couldn't talk to the people inside from outside.

The door opened. Luckily, the person that opened it was just the person I wanted to talk to.

"You said you brought a red ant farm with you. Am I right?"

"Yes." It was Harold. He never actually told me he brought an ant farm with him. I only learned of it after I had watched the episode on TV.

I asked to borrow it and he agreed.

"Perfect."

Harold was confused as to why I needed his ant collection, but he didn't argue. I knew exactly why I needed it.

"Okay Noah. Part one of your master plan went just as… planned, I guess. But now comes the hard part." Why was I talking to myself?

I gently opened the door to the Gopher girl's cabin. Sleeping on the bottom bunk on the right side was my target: Heather.

"Don't worry little elf. Izzy will save you from Santa's wrath."

Aw. The redhead was so cute when she was sleeping.

_Noah, concentrate._

Right, sorry. I got distracted.

I opened up the box with red ants in it. I then dumped them all on Heather. I was about to set the box down but then I realized that Harold might get blamed for the whole incident. I carried the box back to his cabin and then hightailed it out of dodge.

I arrived at my cabin, quickly slammed the door shut and crawled into bed. Luckily, no one woke up from my loud slam of the door.

I was snuggled in when I heard the screaming.

Heather's screams.

They sounded so sweet. Unfortunately, no one else was awake to hear them. As far as I know, anyway.

"Sweet dreams." I said, snuggling in.

I hope you wanted a war Heather, because you sure as hell got one.

* * *

See? I told you guys this one was important.

Don't make Noah angry. You won't like him when he's angry.

Could I have clubbed this chapter with the next challenge? Sure. But don't blame me. Blame Chris. _He's _the one who postponed the challenge to tomorrow.


	15. One Night Stand

I changed some of the chapter titles. The 14th one was causing some confusion.

Also, about the title of this chapter, it's _not _what you think. ;)

P.S. Total Drama: All Stars has started. But you probably know that already.

* * *

Total Drama © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

* * *

_**Total Drama Redemption**_

**Day Thirteen (13)**

I woke up the next morning and was still groggy. Trent and Cody were both gone.

I quickly brushed my teeth and took a bath.

Chris said the next challenge was today, didn't he?

I went over to the Mess Hall. The Killer Bass were sitting as they usually would. Sans a fitness buff and a homeschooled guy. But our table was different.

Cody was sitting by himself. Trent was nowhere to be seen and some people were huddled around Gwen.

I looked at Heather. She had red marks all over her arms and legs and was scratching like crazy.

I kept staring and she spoke up.

"Some jerk dropped red ants into my bed last night. When I find out who it is, they'll be wishing they never lived!" Needless to say, she was pissed.

"You really shouldn't be getting so…antsy." I replied, chuckling to myself as I left.

The table had a high school vibe going on. The popular people have a ton of friends while the loser geeks have no one.

I sat with Cody. He was my best friend. If I didn't, no one would.

"You're sitting here? They might start to hate you as well."

"I don't give a flying feather about what they think. You're my friend and you are being accused for a crime that you didn't commit."

Just then, Chris entered.

"Morning, campers. I hope you're all ready for the next challenge."

"What if we're not?" Courtney asked.

"Then that's too bad. We have a meeting at the campfire pit. Five minutes left until then." He exited.

I quickly gobbled my food (somehow). Owen wasn't here and I didn't want to throw away my food two days in a row. It might make Chef suspicious.

I headed over to the pit like Chris told us to. Where else would I go?

It took a while for everyone to get there, but once it happened, Chris spoke.

"Campers, today's challenge will test your outdoor survival skills. I'm not gonna lie to you. Some of you may not come back alive."

At this, everyone gasped.

"Just joking." Yeah. Joke around with people's lives. It's no big deal.

"All you have to do is spend one night in the woods. Everything you need is at your team's campsite in the forest. You just have to find it."

He had two maps in his hand. He tossed one to Duncan and the other to Heather. He also tossed them compasses.

"Oh. And watch out for bears. Lost a couple of interns in pre-production. First team back for breakfast wins invincibility." He blew an air horn. "Well, off you go." It was our second challenge spanning multiple days.

"Did he say there were bears up in here?" Leshawna asked.

Unfortunately, Owen the "bear hunter" wasn't here to brag about his skills.

"Oh. This one time, I saw a bear eating our garbage." Said a crazy redhead. "He had old spaghetti noodles hanging from his big huge teeth and it looked like blood and guts." That's nice Izzy.

She continued. "So gross. And we thought he was eating the neighbor's cat Zimba but it turned out he was just lost for a week. Uh… you didn't eat spaghetti, did you?" She asked Lindsay.

Lindsay shook her head no.

Despite Izzy's tale, I still think spaghetti would be so good right now.

"Good. Let's go!" The redhead said.

So we all got up, went to our cabins to gather our stuff, and started off. A long trek into the woods. Possible chance of injury. Who _wouldn't _want to partake in such an activity?

Maybe a challenge could get Cody's mind off of the events that happened yesterday.

So we headed off into the forest. Gwen was leading. Even though she had neither the map nor the compass.

Gwen tried to talk with Trent, but he gave her the cold shoulder. This diary incident was affecting Gwen, Trent and Cody. Three birds with one stone. I think that's what Heather was aiming for.

"Ugh. She is _so _the next one to leave." Speak of the devil! Heather was the next one to talk.

"Who?" Trent asked.

"Who do you think? Gwen." That was supposed to be obvious? "She's so distressed. I bet she dumped ants on me just to get some satisfaction."

"She did have her diary read out loud to the entire world." Trent replied.

Heather turned around, making us stop in our tracks. "So?"

"_So? _That was a pretty harsh thing for Chris to do." Trent said.

"Whatever. She's going down." Heather said.

"What does Heather have against Gwen?" Cody asked me.

"Heather has something against everyone." I replied.

So much stuff was spinning in my head right now: The diary incident, Owen's elimination I still didn't know _how_Owen get eliminated?

"Hey Beth, who'd you vote for at the last marshmallow ceremony?" I made sure Heather wasn't listening.

"Owen. He's the reathon we lotht."

I then asked Trent.

"I was going to vote for Lindsay, but then Owen farted. I don't think I could take that for another day man. That stuff took about an hour to clear. I voted for Owen." He said.

Cody said that he voted for himself because he couldn't choose between his friends and a super-hot girl. Typical Cody.

I guessed that Owen had voted for Lindsay as he wouldn't vote for his friends.

"Hey Izzy, who'd you vote for?"

"You."

"What?"

"It had to be you, Lindsay or Owen. And because I couldn't understand a word you were saying, I voted for you."

"It's Shakespearean English, Izzy!"

"Whatever. The only good part was the crown you were wearing."

"The laurel-wreath?"

"Yeah, yeah, that crown-thingy."

"You voted for me?"

"It doesn't matter. You're still here."

I would never have expected Izzy to vote for me. Seriously?

But Izzy also told me who Gwen and Leshawna voted for.

I told Cody how the voting most likely went.

Beth – Owen

Cody – Cody

Gwen - Owen

Heather - Owen

Izzy - Noah

Leshawna - Owen

Lindsay – Owen

Noah – Lindsay

Owen – Lindsay

Trent – Lindsay

Total: Owen (5); Lindsay (3); Noah (1); Cody (1)

Eliminated: Owen

So that explains why Cody was in the bottom five. Seriously Izzy? Why would you frickin vote for me? WTH!

Things were pretty silent for some time. Heather was talking with Lindsay and Beth. They were probably discussing strategy. Trent was talking with Leshawna about something. Izzy was singing 'The Song That Gets on Everybody's Nerves', which got on everybody's nerves pretty darn quickly. Cody had brought his DS and was playing it.

After a while, Trent came over to Cody.

"Cody, I've been hearing… stuff."

"What stuff?"

"Rumors, I hope." This doesn't look good. "Were you the one who stole Gwen's diary and display it in the Cafeteria for all to see?"

"What? No! I didn't do it. Why does everybody think it was me?"

"You saw Gwen writing in the diary, and you always try to be around her. Yes or no?"

"Yes, but I didn't do it!"

"Yes or no?"

Cody sighed "Yes."

"I want to believe you man. I really do. But so far, all the evidence points to you."

"Cody didn't do it!" I said to Trent.

"Then who did?"

I knew the answer, but I didn't have any facts to support it. So I had to remain silent. Rats.

"You're just sticking up for your best friend, Noah. Wow, Cody. I wouldn't even dream about you doing such a thing. But I guess people aren't who they seem to be."

I couldn't imagine how Cody was feeling right now. It was Cody Anderson vs. The World.

"If we lose this challenge, I'm going home for sure." Cody said to me. Unfortunately, I had to agree with him.

The rest of the trip consisted of Gwen trying to talk to Trent and Cody trying to talk to both of them. But no one would talk with anyone. At last, we reached the campsite that was marked on the map.

"There'th no food here." Said Beth.

"This _is _a survival task. Look at the instructions." Said Trent.

"I hope there aren't any bears around today." Said Leshawna

"Wouldn't it be funny if we made some bear sounds and then they came?" Izzy asked.

"Yes Izzy. It'd be a riot." I said, throwing around sarcasm as always.

But the redhead was oblivious to it and made bear noises.

"Roooooooooooar! Grooooooooooowl!"

"Will you please shut up? I'm trying to read here." Said Heather. "It says we're supposed to find our own food." She looked around "I still don't see it."

"We have to gather it, genius." I said.

"I'll go." Said Trent.

So he left to go find food.

Leshawna, Izzy and Gwen were chatting about something, and Heather talked with Lindsay and Beth. I couldn't help but notice that Cody was earning occasional glances from all six of them.

"I'm dead meat." He said.

I had to save his butt somehow. If I couldn't prove to everyone else that he was innocent, then I had to make sure that we won the challenge. Good thing I brought my alarm along with me.

I set it to 6 AM for the next morning. It had better work.

But that was tomorrow. As for today, it was 5 PM. And we were waiting for Trent to arrive.

I noticed that Cody was still pretty down.

"Got any camping jokes?" I asked him. The ones that I knew were pretty lame.

He tapped his chin and thought for a while.

"What's the difference between camping and sex?"

"And I thought _my _jokes were bad."

"It's a joke, Noah. I swear!"

So what was the difference? I thought about it. Probably for too long because Cody yawned. Or maybe he yawned because he was tired. Anyway…

"One is intense and the other is 'in tents'?"

"That's not the answer that I learned, but it's better than the actual answer. I think I'll change the answer to the one you just gave me."

"So what was the_ actual_ answer?"

"You want to go camping and find out the difference?" He said it so slyly that I understood.

But after that, boredom set in once again.

"It's too early to look at constellations." Cody said.

"This tent aint gonna pitch itself, ya know?" Said Leshawna.

For the next half hour or so, we tried to assemble the tent. There were plenty of mishaps along the way.

"No. You stand over there!"

"You're doing it all wrong."

"No, _you're _doing it all wrong."

"Guys! We should just calm down."

"Buzz off!"

"Hey look! I'm a bear. Rooooooooooooar!"

"Shut it Psycho Hose beast!"

At last, after what seemed like an eternity, we completed the tent. We were pretty frickin tired after the whole ordeal. And starving.

"Ugh. I'm sooooooooooo hungry." Heather said.

"Ugh. I think my stomach ate my stomach." Izzy added. If that were so, you would have an ulcer, Izzy.

"Yo! Who ordered the pepperoni? Extra cheese?"

"It's for the camera crew. Over here!"

What the hell? Wait. We were on an island. How did the pizza delivery guy arrive on a frickin island? Magic… *snort* *snort*

"No way!" Heather said.

Then we heard rustling. It was Trent. "I hope you guys like fish."

"Are you kidding me?" Heather asked.

"Oh I love fish. I love fish." Izzy bit the raw fish head. "I guess we should cook it first, huh?"

Behold! The next Sherlock Holmes: Izzy!

We spread out to gather some firewood to cook the fish.

Afterwards, we sat down by the fire and warmed our bodies.

"I can't believe we're actually camping." Lindsay said.

"Lindsay, we've been camping ever since we've got here." Trent said.

"But I thought you need tents and a fire to camp."

"Actually all you need is a gun and a lot of patience." Cody said to me. It took some time for me to realize that he was talking about video game camping.

"Hey, has anyone seen crazy girl?" Said another crazy girl.

"She had to go to the bathroom." Lindsay replied.

"That was over an hour ago." Said Trent. "Izzy! Izzy!"

We called out for her, but there was no answer.

Where was she? Then I remembered.

The bushes rustled.

And out from them emerged a great big grizzly bear.

"Holy shiznit!" Cody yelled.

The bear stood up on its hind legs, and the tech-geek peed in his pants.

I knew it was Izzy. Unless the second time around, it actually _was _a bear. But that wouldn't happen. Would it?

"The trees! Climb into the trees!" Heather said. Wow! She actually said something intelligent for once.

It sounded pretty similar to 'don't go into the long grass!'

So I mustered up some energy and used my scrawny arms to somehow climb the tree. I sat near the trunk because branches get thinner on the outside and cannot support as much weight as the inside.

The bear (which I was pretty sure was Izzy) was now standing right next to the tree.

We heard a wolf howl in the distance.

"There are wolves here, too?" Leshawna asked.

"Apparently, yes." I said.

"So what do we do now?" Trent asked.

"Don't look at me!" Heather said, putting her arms up in defense.

"It was _your_ idea to climb the trees." Gwen said.

"And if we didn't, we would have gotten attacked!"

"Hey, hey, hey. Can we all just calm down? At least we still have fish." Look again Trent, because the bear was now sniffing said fish.

"Hey! Lay off our fish!" Heather yelled.

"It's probably already eaten Izzy!" Lindsay wailed.

"Then it shouldn't be hungry anymore." That's cold, Heather. "What? This is survival of the fittest. She should have just peed in her pants like Cody." And at that point, the eensy weensy teeny weeny grain of respect that I had for Heather vanished into thin air.

"Darwin's rule doesn't apply here!" I yelled. "Maybe we should throw you down there. I sure wouldn't mind."

Instead, someone else's branch began to break. It was Leshawna's. Told you the inside was safer.

She fell down on the ground right next to where the bear was.

"Nice bear. Heheh. Somebody help me!"

There was a flurry of shouts that followed. People were telling Leshawna to go left, right, climb, jump, duck and run.

The bear growled. Please be Izzy. Please be Izzy!

"Hey, are you okay?" Thank goodness!

"Did that bear just ask me a question?" Yes, yes it did.

The 'bear' then opened its mask to reveal that it was actually Izzy all along.

"Okay. I am so confused right now." Don't worry Lindsay. I was pretty confused too after watching the episode for the first time.

"What are you, some kind of weirdo?" Gee Gwen, do you have to ask? I thought it was pretty clear by now.

"I thought it would be funny." Izzy said. Izzy, I am seriously beginning to question what your definition of 'funny' is.

So we all got down from the tree, grumbling about Izzy's practical joke.

"So, now that that's over with, you wanna play chess?" Cody asked.

"Sure." It wasn't like I had anything better to do.

So we set up the pieces on the ground. Gwen and Heather were still glaring at us. And now Trent had joined the 'glaring club' as well.

"Today is sucking so much."

"Tell me about it."

People were pissed off at him for things that he didn't do, and people were pissed off at me for attempting to defend him.

Our game didn't last long. I won quickly. Not as quickly as yesterday, but still pretty quickly.

"If you're really down, maybe we shouldn't play for a while."

"No, that's okay. I should focus on the game and not on outside distractions. Focus is key. Especially for chess."

"True, true."

I noticed that Izzy was still wearing her bear suit.

"Hey Izzy, don't you wanna take off that costume?" I asked her.

"Nah. I like it!" You are one weird person.

"I'm pretty beat." Heather said. I'm gonna go to sleep.

"What? You can't go now. You'll miss all of the camping stuff." Izzy said.

"Izzy, we have to get up early tomorrow so we can make it back to the campgrounds first." Trent said.

"But we still have to tell spooky stories, and sing songs."

"We're not really in the mood." Gwen said.

"Just one. Pleeeeeeeeease?"

The rest of us all collectively sighed.

"Fine." Heather said.

"Alright! This one is my favorite. Here goes..." She paused and inhaled. "I call this one, the Campfire Song Song. Let's gather around the campfire and sing our campfire song! Our C-A-M-P-F-I-R-E S-O-N-G song. And if you don't think that we can sing it faster then you're wrong. But it will help if you just sing along! Bum bum bum. C-A-M-P-F-I-R-E S-O-N-G song, C-A-M-P-F-I-R-E S-O-N-G song. And if you don't think that we can sing it faster then you're wrong. But it will help if you just sing along! C-A-M-P-F-I-R-E S-O-N-G, Lindsay!"

The blonde was put off at suddenly having the attention on her. "What? C-M-A-F-R-P-E…"

"Gwen!" Izzy called out.

"…"

"Good!" Izzy said anyway. "It'll heeeeeeeeeeeelp! It'll heeeeeeeeeelp if you just sing alooooooooooooooong!" She threw her bear head on the floor. "Oh yeah!"

All of us were wondering what the hell we had just witnessed.

"Yeah…anyway, these fish look ready to eat." Heather said.

"Rocking the fish sticks. Nice!" Izzy said. I wasn't too keen on eating fish, but beggars can't be choosers. It was either that, or starve. And I prefer the former.

Then, the bushes rustled again. From the same place where Izzy arrived in her bear suit, another bear emerged.

"Wow. That costume is really good. I mean, I thought _mine _was good, but this one is really good."

"It's probably Chris trying to mess with us." Trent said. "Yeah nice try, man. You can't punk us twice."

"I don't know, Trent. That one actually looks pretty real." I said.

"Chris _did _say there were bears." Heather said in a shaky voice.

We all backed up. The bear roared. "Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!"

"Sounds pretty real to me." I said.

We high-tailed it up the tree again. Fear had given me enough energy to climb the tree a second time.

I climbed the second to highest branch. Cody was on the tallest one. A dark spot had formed on the center of his pants. I think he pissed his pants a second time.

"This is all your fault, crazy girl! If you didn't make those bear sounds and dress like a bear, we could have actually slept in our tents!"

My alarm was in the tent! I hope the bear doesn't destroy it. Could we hear it from up here?

"So thirteen really _is _an unlucky number." Cody said.

And just when people thought it couldn't get any worse, it started to rain. At least it would block out Cody's urine stench.

"The Killer Bass couldn't _possibly _be suffering this much." Trent said. Dramatic irony. It's pretty hysterical.

The bear showed no signs of going away.

"I guess we have to sleep right here." Heather said.

"Noah, I can't sleep here. It's too hard." I had only now noticed that Izzy was on the same branch as I was.

"Let me call my personal assistant and see if he can deliver a pillow." I said.

"But you don't have a phone." Lindsay said.

"Can I sleep on your lap?" Izzy asked me.

She would probably do it anyway, so I agreed.

I leaned against the tree trunk somehow trying to get some sleep.

"Zzzzzz" Izzy had already gone to sleep. That was fast.

After a lot of struggle and maneuvering, I finally managed to get into a somewhat comfortable position.

_Think happy thoughts, Noah. Happy thoughts help you fall asle…zzzzzzzzzzz._

* * *

Which team will lose this challenge?

Who will be sent home as a result?

Can Noah convince the others that Cody wasn't the culprit?

And who would win in a race between Sonic and The Flash?

All of these questions _might _be answered. Find out on the next chapter of TOTAL…DRAMA…REDEMPTION!


	16. Run (from the) Forest, Run!

I keep thinking: how can my feet smell if they don't have a nose? – _Ed, "Ed, Edd n' Eddy"_

The above quote has nothing to do with this chapter. I just felt like adding it for no reason in particular.

Enjoy.

* * *

Total Drama © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

* * *

_**Total Drama Redemption**_

**Day Fourteen (14)**

_Brrrrrrriiiiinnnng._

_Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiinnng._

_Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiinnnnng._

The sound of my alarm managed to wake me up. And this time, it was too far away for me to slam the 'off' button. At least it actually rang at the time I set it for.

I made an attempt at getting up, but my back was so stiff. And Izzy was still sleeping soundly on my lap.

I shook her. "Izzy, wake up."

The insane redhead stirred, but she was still fast asleep. We were all pretty beat from the crazy antics that took place last night.

"Get up Izzy." I shook her harder. This time, she got up.

She let out a yawn. "What?" She said tiredly.

"We're in the middle of a challenge. Let's go."

"Bear's gone." Trent said. Good, because if he was still there, it would have been much more difficult to get back to camp.

"And the map." Gwen added. Rats! It was soaked from last night's rain.

One by one, we all got down from the tree. Or in my case, slip on a tree branch and fall the rest of the way down. Good thing it was only a short fall.

"Okay, I don't know how raccoons sleep in trees because I am _so _stiff." Izzy said.

"Raccoons sleep in trees from a young age. We don't. Therefore, it is difficult for us to adjust to change unless it is done over a long period of time." I answered. A bit complex, but it was the truth.

"You know what, crazy girl? I don't want to hear another word from you. You're the reason we had to sleep on the tree in the first place."

A bird chirped annoyingly, and we all shouted "Shut up!" in sync. Yesterday had been a really frustrating day for all of us.

I heard my alarm. It was still going off.

"Can someone please turn that darn thing off!?" Heather asked, irritated.

"Don't worry. I'll smash it with a hammer!" Izzy said. She pulled out a giant hammer and pounded it on my alarm. I'm gonna need a new alarm clock. And where did Izzy get a hammer?

"Come on people, let's get a move on!" Trent called out.

We didn't have time for roll call. Cody's pants had now dried up, so that was good.

I ran faster than I did during the 20K run. I didn't want our team to lose this challenge. And I certainly didn't want to be the reason _why _we lost.

I hope we're going the right way. Unfortunately, our map was gone. Then again, we didn't need the map to get _to _the campsite so I guess we can find our way back without it as well.

"We're the first ones back!" I heard someone shout. It was C-I-T Courtney.

"Oh no! They beat us here!" Heather said worriedly. "This is all _your _fault." She pointed her finger at Izzy accusingly.

"Uh uh uh uh. Not so fast, Gopherinos." Chris said. "It seems like the Killer Bass are missing a few fish."

I looked the Bass that were present. Courtney, Geoff, Duncan, Bridgette, DJ, Harold and Tyler. Katie and Sadie were gone. Or 'Tweedledumb' and 'Tweedleidiot' as Duncan had called them earlier.

"Oh, you mean Katie and Sadie? I'm pretty sure they got eaten by wolves last night." Courtney said drolly. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if they were.

"Darn shame." Duncan added just as drolly.

Come to think of it, Chris never specified the rules. Was it the first _person _to make it back or the first _team _as a whole? He also never said that all the members of the team needed to be present.

Just then, we heard some huffing and puffing from the forest. Out from it emerged (guess who?) Katie and Sadie!

"We made it." Katie said.

"We're safe." Said her BFFFL. "Oh my gosh, guys! We got totally lost and then got in this massive fight."

"And there was this huge bear and he was all 'Rawr, you're in my crib so get out'!" Katie made clawing motions. Izzy's were better in my opinion.

"And we had to run and it was like soooo scary."

"Oh Sadie, I'm soooo sorry I said I was prettier than you."

"And I'm sooo sorry I brought up the snack shack." I would be soooo happy if you please stop emphasizing the word 'so'.

"And I'm sorry I said your butt was too big to fit in the bus seats."

"You did?"

"Um. Well not to your face…" Funniest part of this whole conversation.

"Oh who cares? We're safe, and you're my best friend and I love you." They hugged. Aw. How touching. I feel like throwing up.

"Oh I love you too."

"Ahem." Courtney said, clearing her throat. "Have you two finished your little love-fest?"

The other two nodded.

"Good. Because thanks to you, we just lost the challenge!"

"Wow. We got pretty lucky." Cody told me.

I know I shouldn't be happy that two people got lost, but it was the reason why we won.

"Alright, Killer Bass. One of your fishy butts is going home. Gophers, you're going on an all-expenses paid trip to: the Tuck Shop!" After losing two challenges in a row, it felt nice to win one for a change.

"Two helicopters will be here to pick you guys up at nine o' clock tomorrow. As for the Bass, it's time to pick the person you hate the most and send them on their way."

The Gophers cheered and the Bass groaned. I was happy because if we lost, I think either Cody or Izzy would have gotten the boot. A trip to the Tuck Shop was a pretty sweet reward as well, no pun intended.

But now, it was time to use a device that I hadn't used in three days: the Confession Cam.

Izzy had just exited it. She was still wearing her bear suit. I decided not to ask any questions (for fear of the answers) and entered the Confession Cam.

"For all of my relatives back home that always kept on asking me why I stay in the house all the time and do nothing but read novels and play computer games, _yesterday _is the reason why. We got pranked by Izzy; then a real bear invaded our camp; it rained; we had to sleep on tree branches; which I fell off of, by the way; and Heather was being her usual egotistical, whiney self. The only way that this could have been worse was if we lost the challenge, which we thankfully didn't. I prefer the great _indoors_, thank you very much." I then left the wooden rectangular prism.

I went to the Gopher cabin, grabbed a shirt, pants and towel, and headed on over to the shower. The shirt I had on was covered with dirt, leaves, grime and some other unrecognizable muck. I washed the filth off of the clothes and hung them up to dry, then went into deep thought in the shower.

Owen was gone. And it was my fault. But if I had let Heather participate, she would have read Gwen's diary. And then get voted off as a result! Crap. I should have just let Heather do her dancing routine. If she bests Tyler, we win the challenge. And if she loses, she most likely gets sent home.

Why didn't I think of this while we were doing the actual challenge? But that was past, and everyone knows that you can't change the past. Except I already had changed it by coming back here for the second time. But I didn't know that Tyler would actually do well with his yo-yo tricks. He sucked pretty hard during the tryouts.

But then again, Courtney's violin was broken and so was Geoff's skateboard. The only other options were Duncan and the Wonder Twins. Speaking of the Wonder Twins, I wonder which one of them gets voted off later today.

Even more important, the person who actually won the first time around was now gone. So who would win now? Would it be Gwen, who finished second before? Or would it be someone else? I just had to wait and find out because only time will tell.

I've been showering for a long time. I turned down the water, dried myself off, put on my fresh clothes and left the shower.

"Thank goodness! I thought you'd never leave. Did you fall asleep in there or something?" Cody was outside with a towel in hand.

"I got lost in thought. Sorry." I replied.

I went over to the Mess Hall. The Killer Bass were poking their food, quietly eating lunch. They were whispering among themselves, and I couldn't make out any of the words that were coming out of their mouths.

Didn't Chris say that we had to be back in time for breakfast? I guess both teams got delayed due to circumstances.

I grabbed a tray of something that was edible but sure didn't look like it was. I was pretty hungry. I hadn't even finished my fish from last night because a grizzly interrupted us.

Cody was still taking a shower and Trent was nowhere to be seen, so I was the only male at the Gopher table.

"Hey Noah, are you coming to the hot tub party tonight?" Izzy asked me. "We haven't fired that baby up in a while and we figured tonight would be the best time because we wanted to celebrate our victory."

"Sure. Why the heck not?" I said in between gobbling mouthfuls off food. I don't think I have been this hungry since the Awake-athon ended.

"Cool! See you there!"

So we were going to celebrate winning our second reward by enjoying the first reward. I left the Main Lodge and was about to my cabin when I was interrupted by a certain someone who goes by the name of Harold.

"Hi Noah."

"Huh? Oh, hi."

"Listen, I don't have time for chit-chat and all that. Or 'small-talk' as it is referred to these days. Yeah, that's what they call it. You see, I'm not the kind of person who likes to drag things out. I don't like talking on and on. I really can't stand people like that. Do you know anyone like that? Some person who simply rambles on and on about useless drivel that concerns you in no way whatsoever?"

"Gee. I think I might know a certain someone."

"And you wish that they'd just get to the point, but they don't. And that makes you hate them with an intense passion-"

"You mean like right now?"

This made him pause. "Oops. Sorry about that. You see, sometimes I just get carried away with my introductions. Because the introduction is the most important part of a conversation in my opinion. A bad introduction means no one will listen to the rest of what you are saying."

"Can you just get to the point already?!" He was getting on my last nerve.

"Okay. GOSH! What did you do with my red ant farm!?"

"Holy crap, Harold! Turn it down." If Heather hears this, we're screwed.

"Then tell me what you did with it."

Oh crap. Got to think fast. "What ant farm?" Step 1: Stall.

"The one you borrowed from me two nights ago."

"I didn't borrow anything from you." Step 2: Lie.

"Yes you did. You knocked on my door asking to borrow my ant farm."

"No I didn't." Step 3: Deny, deny, deny.

"Yes you did. Your fingerprints are still on the Killer Bass door. I can take out my fingerprinting kit that I got from Magic Steve's Detective Camp and prove it."

That won't be necessary. "Oh! Now I remember. I borrowed that ant farm from you, didn't I? It's all coming back to me." Snap. Just when I thought I could walk away like it never happened.

"So where is it?"

"I put it back in the Bass cabin."

"I know that. But you forgot to close the lid. All the ants escaped."

"I left the ant farm in your cabin with the lid on. Someone must have opened the lid and let the ants out on purpose." Step 4: More lying.

"I bet it was Duncan. That idiot! He probably did it because he's jealous of my mad skills. I'm glad he didn't dump the ants on me."

"Yes, Duncan! That's exactly who did it. I had no involvement in this whole thing at all. So go and let out all of your frustrations on him." Step 5: False accusation.

"I would, but he'd cream me."

"I don't blame you. That dude scares the crap out of me."

"Well, sorry for the misunderstanding. I've got to go."

"Bye Harold." I just dodged a major bullet right there.

I headed over to my cabin and saw Trent in his swim trunks.

"Hey dude, you ready for the party?" I guess someone told him, most likely Izzy. It could have been Leshawna, but I doubt it.

"Yep. But isn't there still time?"

"Yeah, but I want to go for a quick swim first."

"Alright then, see you later."

I went into the cabin and grabbed my bathing gear from my duffel bag. It had been twelve days since I had worn it last.

Since the cabin was now empty, I sat on my bunk and read _The Things They Carried_ for a while.

Then, it was time to go.

The big party that everyone had been building up to and anticipating was a total flop.

Only Trent, Izzy, Lindsay, Beth and I showed up.

"So… where's everyone else?" I asked.

"Who cares? Let's party!" Izzy said.

We got into the hot tub. Cody and Gwen were still upset over the diary incident. Trent thinks that Gwen actually wrote it and that Cody stole her diary. Gwen thinks that Cody tampered with her diary to make it look like she hated Trent. And Heather was just sitting back and watching the results of her labor.

I was wondering whether or not I should talk with Trent about the situation, but decided not too as Izzy, Lindsay and Beth would also be listening.

"I can't wait for our trip tomorrow." Lindsay said. "I can't wait to get some new clothes!"

"Um, Lindthay? We're not going to a clothing thtore."

"But I thought a Tuck shop was a place where you could get cute dresses and stuff."

"We're going to a snack store. Like one of those stores you see at the gas station."

"Oh. Wow Neal, you're really smart."

"I just wish some of my smartness could have rubbed off on you."

"Okay. I don't know about you guys, but this is really starting to bore me." Said Izzy.

She got out of the pool. "Oh wait, I need to pee." She got back in the pool.

And we quickly clamored out.

"Izzy! That's so gross." Trent said.

"What? I couldn't hold it all the way to the washrooms."

The party was sucking anyway, so I didn't really care about the unexpected ending. How _does _a hot tub party end anyway? I guess it ends when most people start to leave. But then again, how much is 'most'? Why do I care anyway!?

Trent, Lindsay and Beth left. So it was just me and crazy girl.

"I thought something was gonna go down tonight, guess I was wrong." I said.

"Well, there's an elimination ceremony set to take place in a while."

"Glad we're not over there."

"As am I Noah, as am I."

It was getting late so I headed back to my cabin. Cody was sleeping.

I shook him.

He stirred. "What?" He grumbled.

"Chess."

I thought he would just turn his head around and go back to sleep but he actually got up to get the pieces.

He looked pretty distraught.

We didn't talk until about half of the pieces were off of the board. Most of them were his.

"So, you excited for tomorrow?" I asked him.

"Knowing Chris, he'd probably just take us to some dump."

"Let's hope not."

"Anyway, who do you think is going home tonight?"

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

"You don't care?"

"Not really." I was just glad that one of those annoying chatterboxes would be leaving.

We played for some more time.

"You lost. Hat-trick for Noah!"

"GG, dude."

"Same to you." He went back to bed.

I climbed into mine. Good thing Trent wasn't here, or there would have been quite some fuss.

Where _is _Trent, anyway? I'm too tired to go look. I'm sure he'll be back sooner or later.

And with that, I slept.

* * *

Oh man, this chapter was such a hassle to write. Sorry if it seems bland. The next one should be pretty… interesting, to say the least.

P.S. Roadrunner would win the race.


	17. TDI Snackdown

No intro? Impossible!

Total Drama © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

* * *

_**Total Drama Redemption**_

**Day Fifteen (15)**

I felt someone shaking me.

"Get up." Was that Cody's voice?

I opened my eyes. I was right.

"What?" I grumbled.

"You know what today is."

"Let's see. If we arrived here on Monday, and it's been fifteen days…"

"That reminds me, we've survived for two weeks!"

"So that means that today is Tuesday."

"But that wasn't what I wanted to talk to you about."

"What, then?"

"Our trip to the Tuck Shop is in half an hour!"

Oh yeah. The reward we got for winning the challenge! I almost forgot.

I had just now noticed that he had already taken a bath and was ready to go while I was still lying in my bed.

I quickly got down and headed off to the shower. I speedily brushed my teeth, took a quick bath and put on my clothes in a hurry. In short, I was trying to get ready as fast as possible.

I had just got out of the bathroom when I heard the sound of blades whizzing.

"Get to da choppa!" Izzy screamed, running towards it.

From the skies, two helicopters descended. They were bright red with black blades and yellow doors.

Chris got out of one of them.

All of the members of our team gathered around.

"Gophers, I hope you are ready for your next challenge!" What?

Looks of utter confusion enveloped our faces.

"Just kidding. Enjoy your little field trip, and be sure to tell the Killer Bass about all of the awesome things that they missed. Haha."

I'm sure Heather will, Chris.

"Anyway, all boys in one helicopter and all girls in the other."

Good. We didn't need to deal with Leshawna the loudmouth, Heather the brat, Izzy the nutcase or Lindsay the dimwit.

"We can finally go back to civilization." Heather said.

"Um… actually Heather, the Tuck Shop you're going is in an undisclosed location. And you guys will be the only ones there." Chris said.

"You mean we won't be seeing any normal people?" Gwen said. Hey! I'm normal. On second thought, never mind.

"That's right Gwen."

"Drat!"

"Anyway, it's time for you guys to go."

We got in as Chris told us too. That meant Cody and Trent were in the same chopper.

And I was with them.

Not good.

The choppers took off, creating a circle of dust and leaves all around them. Good thing the doors were closed.

"So Trent, about the diary thing-" Cody started.

"I'm not in the mood Cody."

"He's innocent." I said.

"Can we just enjoy our reward without bringing that up?"

"Fine."

After that, I read my book, Cody played his DS and Trent stared out the window in deep thought.

We were silent for a while, and then Cody spoke.

"So Sadie got the boot last night. I found out after the ceremony. You guys were at the party. I was going to bring it up yesterday, but you said you didn't care."

"I knew one of the two was probably going to leave as they caused their team to lose. Besides, they're practically identical in terms of their personality."

"You got _that _right. The only thing distinguishing them is that one's… slightly bigger than the other."

'_Slightly'. Sure._

I didn't care that Sadie was out. It was just the fact that she was out instead of Katie. But why?

I didn't have much time to think because the helicopter then landed.

"Mr. Maclean told me to make sure you guys are back by five." The pilot said.

"Mr. Maclean?" Heather wondered if what he just heard was correct.

We were _way_ younger thanthe guy and we still called him by his first name, Chris. It was mostly due to the fact that we had no respect for him. Okay, _fully _because we had no respect for him.

"Don't worry. We'll be back in time like _Chris _said." I said.

It was now 9:15. We had more than seven hours to blow.

We noticed the surroundings.

It was all barren except for a big store whose sign read 'Tuck Shop' in glowing fluorescent yellow letters. The building was light blue in color.

"Where are we?" Leshawna asked.

"I can't tell you that. Sorry. Mr. Maclean's orders."

"So what happens if we're not back by five?" Izzy asked. "Do you just abandon us? That would be so cool. To be abandoned in a deserted area and having to find your way back. Wouldn't that be awesome, Noah?"

Why did she have to drag me into this?

"Yeah. That would _totally_ be awesome. I could die, but it would _definitely_ be awesome."

"Of course it would." The sarcasm whizzed past her like a high speed jet.

"Just be back by five." The pilot said.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go in!" The crazy redhead shouted.

We all entered the store.

And our mouths started to drool.

Right there in front of us was nearly every snack that a person could name off the top of their head.

There were potato chips, cookies, almonds, soda, ice cream, cashews, bagels, cupcakes, juice, peanuts, candy bars, nachos, crackers, yogurt, sandwiches, bubble gum, pretzels, donuts, instant noodles, popcorn, and of course marshmallows. I would go on naming them but my taste buds were tingling.

"Cody, I know what we're going to do today. Hey, where's Izzy?"

"Mmmmm. Tasty." I heard the redhead call out from someplace.

I looked around and saw her. She was holding a donut in one hand and a big bucket of ice cream in the other.

Izzy and sugar? I fear the hyperactivity that will get produced as a result of this.

"So Cody, I'm going to take a wild guess in saying that you're going to go for the chocolate first."

He turned to me. "Chocolate! Did you say chocolate!?"

I pointed to where it was located. His eyes fixated upon the sight. There were all of the chocolate bars that a person could eat. And it was all free.

"CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE!" He ran to the candy bars screaming and dived headfirst into the pile of sweets.

To say he had a sweet tooth was a massive understatement. He had a sweet jaw.

"You want some peanuts?" She asked me.

"No thanks. I'm allergic."

"Oh well. More for me!"

We were like kids in a candy store. Or rather, _teens _in a candy store.

Man, Owen would have loved this.

Lindsay noticed the man at the cash register and walked up to. He looked really familiar….

"You look really familiar." Lindsay said.

"What? No I don't"

"Yeah. You look awfully similar to the Chef from our summer camp." I said.

"I don't look like Chef Hatchet!"

"We never told you his name…" I said.

"Alright, fine. Chris told me to disguise as a cashier to keep an eye on you crazy kids."

"Great disguise." I said.

"Whatever. Just know that you maggots gotta be outta this place by five o'clock."

So we went back to chowing down. This is so much better than Chef's food. Though I wouldn't _dare _say that out loud.

I grabbed a can of Pringles.

"I'll take a potato chip… and eat it!" I've always wanted to do that.

"Are there any healthy snacks around here?" Lindsay asked. "I don't want to lose my facial complexion."

"No."

"Then I guess I won't be eating anything then." Her stomach grumbled. "Screw it, I'm doing it."

"That's what she said." Said Cody.

Lindsay was holding two Twinkies in her hand. "These are so big. And there's filling in them too."

"That's what she said."

"They're also a perfect fit in your mouth."

"Don't say it!" I said.

"Okay. But she's making it too easy."

"Mmmmm. I love the taste of nuts in my mouth."

"That's" I glared at him, daring him to finish that sentence the way he intended to. "…great, Lindsay." Good choice, Cody.

We munched on more snacks.

"Oh sweet chocolate. How I've missed you so." Cody said.

Does this store have- it does! Nutella!

I went up to the jar of hazelnut goodness, opened the lid, grabbed a spoon and ate to my heart's content.

The producers were going to be spending a lot of money after this excursion. A frickin lot.

Izzy let out a big burp after drinking three whole bottles of Coke.

Heather was eating some noodles. Lindsay was still eating chocolate bars, as was Cody. Leshawna was guzzling some soda, Beth was chowing down on chips and I was eating some cookies.

"Owen would have loved this. Too bad he's gone." Cody said.

"But then there would be nothing left for the rest of us." I replied.

While we were there, it seemed like all of our worries went away. The diary incident, the eliminations of Justin and Owen, it all seemed to fade away into the background. Hell, even _Gwen _seemed pretty happy. And that's saying something seeing how she was two days ago.

I just wish we could stay here forever. But unfortunately, we would have to go back to that dreaded island.

"You maggots have fifteen minutes left!" Chef yelled from the counter.

Fifteen minutes!? That was all.

"Time thure flieth when you're eating good food." Beth said. You got that right.

"Good thing I brought my bag." Cody said. He then began loading a bunch of candy bars in it.

"Actually, you can't take any of the stuff here with you." Chef said.

The silence was deafening after that statement.

"… Just kidding. Man, you kids take things ay too seriously these days."

"I almost had a heart attack." Cody said.

"You _will _get one if you keep eating those chocolate bars." Heather said. Cody just stuck his tongue out at her.

I filled my bag with potato chips.

"Hey guys, have you ever noticed all those white balls of fluff floating around in the sky?"

Okay, I don't know if that's the real Izzy talking or the caffeinated one.

"Izzy, what are you doing?" Gwen asked her. She was dangling from a chandelier.

"What do you _think _I'm doing? I am Spiderwoman! Haha." You should join me.

"No thanks." I muttered. Yep. She was _definitely _on caffeine. Right?

"Just when I thought crazy girl couldn't get any more psychotic." Heather said.

"But you weren't bitten by a radioactive spider." Cody said.

"Funny you say that" Izzy said, jumping down from the ceiling. "I once took a trip to the jungle and then this giant mosquito just came out of nowhere and bit me! He was huge. Like 'the size of Owen' huge. Luckily, I was able to defeat him with my karate moves. Hiya!"

She chopped a counter in half and the candy spilled on the floor. Cody eagerly ran over to collect it.

"Enough of your stupid antics. Get your butts outta here."

"Um Cook, shouldn't be coming as well?" Lindsay asked.

"Yeah. And I'm a chef, not a cook."

No! Lindsay! If we had left Chef back here, maybe Chris would have hired an actual chef.

So we went over to the helicopters, which had just touched down.

"So I guess I'm with you guys." Chef said. "Unless the ladies…"

"No!" The girls all shouted in tandem. Chef sitting with the girls? That was creepy on so many levels.

"I'll sit with them." Cody said.

Again, they all screamed "No!"

"It was worth a shot." Cody told me afterwards.

"Seeing as there are six girls and only three guys, Chef should sit with the guys." Heather said.

And so, Chef sat with us, and we took off.

"So, has there been any drama on the show lately?' Chef asked us.

"A lot more than necessary." I said.

"You know, I'm still trying to figure out that diary incident."

"New topic please." Trent said.

"I agree." Cody added.

Chef spent the rest of the ride thinking about a new topic to talk about, and the rest of us were quiet.

This trip was awesome, but now, we would have to return to the island, where Chris was waiting.

It was time to go back to the drama.

Oh joy.

It was evening when we got back.

"We're back already?" Chef asked. "But there are still so many things we haven't talked about yet."

"Don't worry Chef. I'm sure we'll get another opportunity." I said. Hopefully not.

"I ate too much candy. I think I'm gonna be sick- blaaaaaaaaaaaaaah." Izzy vomited all over the ground.

"Ew." Heather said.

We all headed back to our cabins.

"So I heard Katie was pretty upset about Sadie being voted off." Cody said.

"They are Best Female Friends For Life." I replied.

"I feel sorry for them, though. I barely got to know them."

"I know I may come off as a major douche by saying this, but better her than me." I said. Those two were really annoying.

Then, we heard a knock on our door. Cody ran over to answer it. It was the Gopher Girls next door.

Beth was holding a plate of Jell-O in her hand.

"Don't mind if I do." Cody said, reaching out to grab the dessert.

Heather slapped his hand.

"It's not for you, dork. It's for the Bass." She said.

"Katie was crying nonstop after the elimination. We felt sorry for her and wanted to cheer her up." Gwen said.

"We wanted to thhow thome thporthmanthhip."

"Hmmm… and that's the only reason?" I asked.

"I think me spilling a jar of perfume on the floor may have something to do with it." Lindsay said.

"Anyway, you wanna come with?" Izzy asked.

The perfume smell was seeping into our cabin.

"Oh no! We're trapped. And the only way out is through the… perfume department!" Cody said.

"Stop with your stupid SpongeBob references and let's go." Heather said.

"It's a good cartoon." Cody muttered under his breath.

We got to the campfire pit and Katie was (surprise!) crying.

The other members of the Killer Bass were sitting around her. They noticed us.

"What do _you _guys want?" Courtney asked. "Come by to rub it in?"

"That's what Chip told us to do" Lindsay started, but Gwen elbowed her. "Ow! What?"

"We got some extra dessert after our Tuck Shop party." Trent said. "We thought you might want some."

"So what? You're just being _nice_?" Unselfishness was not a word in Courtney's dictionary.

"Okay. Lindsay's perfume enveloped our cabin and we need some time to air it out." Said Gwen.

"Good thing it wasn't one of my deluxe ones, or it would have been so hard to replace." The aforementioned dimwit said.

Beth went over to Courtney and handed her the Jell-O.

"NO!" The C-I-T shrieked. "I mean no thanks. I'm good."

"Are you on a diet or something?" Duncan asked her.

"No! I just don't like green jelly okay?" She replied.

Beth then went over to DJ. Bad idea.

"SNAAAAAAAKE!" He screamed, knocking the plate out of Beth's hands and onto the dirt.

"Chill dude. It's just a Gummy Worm." Cody said, pulling it out of the Jell-O.

"Sorry for trippin. Snakes just freak me out." The big guy said.

"I feel you." Tyler said, putting a hand on DJ's back. Chickens give me the creeps dude."

"You're afraid of chickens?" Gwen asked the jock.

"Wow. That's… that's really lame, man." Duncan said.

And the share-fest began. We all gathered round the bonfire and started discussing our fears.

"Ninjas. They're like silent assassins of the night." Harold admitted.

"I don't like sumo wrestlers." Heather said. "They're so fat and disgusting. Just like Owen. Ugh."

"I'm afraid of bugth. Like one bug ith okay, but if I were covered in them, I don't know what I'd do." Beth said. "They're jutht so creepy with their freaky chirpth. They jump on you when you leatht expect it, and they fly around your head all the time annoying the crap out of you."

"I feel ya sister. Spiders are the worst insects ever."

"Spiders aren't insects." Cody, Harold and I said. Nerds unite!

"What's _my _worst fear? I guess… being buried alive." Gwen said.

"Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!" Cody whispered to me. Of course he watched Star Trek.

"Walking through a minefield. In heels." Said Lindsay.

"Just wearing heels is scary enough." I told Cody, who chuckled.

"I would never go up in a plane. Never." Izzy said.

"Aerophobia. From the Latin, as opposed to aeronausiphobia, the fear of air sickness."

"Keep up the fascinating facts, and I'm going to be aero-nauseous all over _you._" I muttered, earning another chuckle from Cody.

Geoff spoke. "I'm scared of hail. It's small but deadly dude."

"Being left alone in the woods." Bridgette admitted.

"Bad haircuts." Katie said, still sniffling. Of course she would have the same fear as her BFFFL.

"Oh okay, I change mine!" Lindsay said. "That's soooo much scarier than a minefield."

"Time to look cool." Cody whispered to me. "Having to defuse a time bomb under pressure." Cody said out loud. "Heh. Even got a Queen song in there."

"I'm not really afraid of anything." Courtney said matter-of-factly.

"Baloney." Duncan coughed.

"Oh really? What exactly is _your _phobia Mr. Know-It-All?" Hey! _I'm _Mr. Know-it-all!

All of our eyes were on the tough guy.

"C- Celine Dion music store standees." He said quickly.

"Haha. Ex-squeeze me? I didn't quite get that." Cody said, putting a hand to his ear.

"Dude? Did you say Celine Dion music store standees?" Trent asked him.

Duncan just hid his face behind his hands.

"Oh I love Celine Dion!" Lindsay said. "What's a standee?"

"You know. That cardboard cut-out thing that stands in a music store." Trent answered.

"Don't say it dude!" Duncan yelled.

"Kind of like a life sized, but flat Celine." Trent said anyway.

"So if we had a cardboard standee right now…" Courtney started.

"Shut up!" The punk yelled. "What about you guys?" He asked us.

"Okay, well, I hate mimes. Like a lot." Trent said. Courtney just rolled her eyes.

And then it was my turn. Aw man, I was making fun of other people's fears up till now.

_Think, Noah. What fear would make you look cool? _

Cody already used the 'bomb'_._

"Velociraptors. If those things ever come back to life, we're doomed." I said.

That wasn't my biggest fear. It was one of my fears, but not my biggest. Truth be told, I hadn't given enough thought on the subject.

Tattoos, running into a mobster in a dark alleyway, have to listen to 'Friday', watching or reading Twilight. These were all scary. But I guess my biggest fear would be being surrounded by complete idiots. Unfortunately, with the amount of nincompoops increasing in this world, I think my fear might come true.

"Alright Courtney, you're afraid of something, spit it out." Trent said.

"Nope. Nothing."

Duncan snickered. "That's not what she said last night."

"Duncan, did you ever consider that I was just humoring you and your stupid story?"

"Sure, sure, princess. Whatever floats your boat." The punk replied.

"Shut up!"

"Aw come on, Courtney. We all told you our fears." Geoff said.

"No way. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to bed." She left.

I had to find out about the voting from last night. Guessing would be a toss-up, so I decided to ask the Bass. Harold first, since I knew him best.

"If you don't mind me asking, who'd you vote for?"

"Why do you want to know?" The nerd asked.

"Just curious, that's all."

"I voted for Sadie because Katie used to be on your team and I thought we could use Katie to figure out your strengths and weaknesses. It's a cheap move, really."

"No problem." I had tried doing the same thing with Izzy, but to no avail.

DJ had heard our conversation. "I voted for Katie because I thought she might be throwing the challenges. Guess I was wrong."

"Aw come on, DJ! We're teenagers." Harold said. "Why would we throw challenges and risk getting voted off?" Little did he know…

"I flipped a coin." Tyler said. When did he get here? "It landed on heads, so I voted for Sadie."

"Spun a bottle and it landed on Sadie." Duncan said.

"I drew a 'K' and an 'S' in the sand, closed my eyes, spun around thrice and blindly pointed to one of the letters, which happened to be 'S' so Sadie was who I voted for." Geoff said. It was a pretty complicated deciding process for a simple vote.

"I heard Courtney talking to Bridgette about voting off Katie. Apparently she's much louder than the other one."

"I think the Talkative Twosome both voted for me for being 'mean'." Duncan said. "How can you _not _be mean when those two are driving you insane?"

"Well, this talk was good but I've gotta go." I said, leaving the pit. It was getting late.

"Good night." Geoff said.

We all went our separate ways.

In our cabin, Trent was asleep and Cody had already set up the chess pieces.

"Dude, what took you so long?"

"I was talking to the Bass boys." I said. "I figured out the voting."

"I thought you didn't care."

"Anyway, here's how it went…" I told him.

Bridgette – Katie

Courtney - Katie

DJ - Katie

Duncan – Sadie

Geoff – Sadie

Harold - Sadie

Katie - Duncan

Sadie - Duncan

Tyler –Sadie

Total: Sadie (4); Katie (3); Duncan (2)

Eliminated: Sadie

Three of the votes were luck-based. I guess the first time around, Tyler, Geoff and Duncan voted Katie. But this time, the vote was different.

This was the first time that a Bass elimination was different from the first time around. I thought nothing of it, seeing as Katie and Sadie were pretty much clones.

Cody was more energized than he was over the past few days. He actually managed to draw the chess match with me.

"Well, it's not a win but I'll take it." Cody said.

We climbed into our beds.

"Today was awesome, dude. We finally talked together like a bunch of teenagers instead of two opposing teams. Just a bummer that Courtney wouldn't share her fear."

"She's afraid of opening up." I said.

"Noah, do you think they'll ever forgive me?"

"Good always prevails in the end, Cody."

"Just like in comic books?"

"Just like in comic books."

He dozed off."

"Good night, sweet Cody." I said before drifting off myself.

* * *

I hope this chapter was better than the last one.

I had originally wanted Sadie to get voted off, but I had to figure out a reason why. Because things can't happen for no reason, you see.

I used a lot of brand names in this chapter. Expecting the lawsuits to come in a couple of days.


	18. What Scares You the Most?

Reply to **WishStar – **Noah is too scared to face his biggest fear. There is a specific reason why Noah said this fear. You'll find out in this chapter.

Total Drama © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

* * *

_**Total Drama Redemption**_

**Day Sixteen (16) **

I woke up today feeling a little sick to my stomach.

Too many potato chips.

I went outside the cabin and heard Geoff talking with Courtney.

"What is it, then? Are you afraid of the dark?"

"No. I'm not a little kid!"

"Then what?"

"Sorry. Not telling."

I wanted to yell out 'green jelly' but resisted the urge.

I instead headed over to the washroom and vomited in the sink. I had stuffed myself yesterday, and it was all coming back. Literally.

After taking a bath and putting on new clothes, I went to the Mess Hall, where people were eating as usual.

I grabbed some food and went to our table.

Cody was actually sitting with the group, but no one was talking to him. At least he was sitting with the group.

This 'diary incident' nonsense has to stop.

Then, we heard a whistle. It was Chris Maclean.

We all turned to him.

"Campers, your next challenge is a little game I like to call 'Phobia Factor'" Nice rip off of '_Fear Factor' _Chris.

"Prepare to face your worst fears!" Justin Bieber?

"Worse than this?" Leshawna asked, holding up her 'food'.

"We're in trouble." Gwen said.

Chris continued. "Now, for our first victim, he pulled out a card. Heather!"

"What does he mean by 'victim'?" Cody asked me.

"We're about to find out." I said.

"Meet us all in the theatre. It's sumo time!"

Heather spit her drink out on Trent.

"Gwen. You, me, the beach. A few tons of sand." Gwen's jaw dropped open.

"Wait, how did _they_ know those were your worst fears?" Lindsay asked.

"Because we told them." Gwen said, face-palming.

"At the campfire last night." Trent said.

"Wait. They were listening to us?" Lindsay asked.

"It's a reality show, Einstein. They're always listening to us." Gwen, I don't think Lindsay even knows who Einstein is.

"That's like, eavesdropping." The blonde said.

"Chef Hatchet, didn't you have a special order for Tyler here today?"

The cook nodded and pulled out a piece of food that looked like a chicken. He handed it to Tyler.

Tyler looked unsure, but grabbed the chicken and bit its head off. It's the headless chicken from outer space!

Then, a live chicken popped out of the dead one. Tyler screamed, dropped the chicken and ran out of the Main Lodge.

"Chef, you go get him. The rest of you, come with me." Said Chris.

"He's making us face our worst fears? That's pure evil." Cody said.

"He's Satan reincarnate." I said.

Chris took us to a large inflatable pool.

"We're going swimming?" Lindsay asked.

"Nope. Only Beth is. And she's going to be swimming in insects!"

DJ vomited at the sight of cockroaches, ants, worms, flies and who knows what other disgusting bugs that were crawling in there.

"It's okay, Beth. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." I said.

"F.D.R. Cool." Cody said.

Beth gulped and jumped in. She came in a while later, covered in bugs but smiling.

"And Beth sets the bar _way_ up there." Chris said as we cheered. "That's one point for the Gophers."

"Stop squirming, boy! Back in Nam, people got shot in the foot and they didn't squirm this much!" Chef came in, holding Tyler. He set the clumsy jock down.

"I'm okay. I'm okay." Tyler said, exhaling hardly.

"On to the next one." Chris Said. He led us to the Main Lodge, and pulled out two wigs.

Two _bad _wigs. "Ladies, if you please."

Lindsay and Katie hesitantly walked up to him. He placed the wigs on their heads.

"If you can wear these until I tell you to take them off, you win a point for your team."

We heard the sound of a plane landing nearby.

"Is that…" Izzy started.

"A plane? Right you are, Izzy." Chris said.

Izzy gulped and we all went outside.

A cross-dressing Chef stepped out of a rickety plane. He was going to be the pilot.

"You can do it, Izzy." I told her.

"Comforting our girlfriend are we?"

"Shut up, Cody." I said.

She got on. "I'm going to die now. I'm going to frickin die now."

"While she's flying on her ride-of-death, let's do some other challenges, shall we?"

"It's not like you'll listen if we say 'no'." I said.

"Right you are, Mr. Cynic. It looks like Harold's gone to the bathroom. Let's send him a surprise, courtesy of _moi_."

He pulled out his cell-phone and dialed a number. "Bring in the ninjas." He said.

Ninjas descended onto the roof of the men's bathroom.

They then cut a hole on top and went down.

"Um… that'll be fixed, right?" Trent asked.

"Haha, you're funny." Chris said. All the male teens glared at him. "Okay, fine. We'll fix it."

"Good." Duncan said, punching his fist. Chris shuddered at the sight.

The door opened. Three ninjas came out of the bathroom holding the nerd.

"I guess Harold fainted from the sight." Chris said, even though Harold actually knocked himself out with his nunchucks.

"Ooooooh Treeeeeeeeeeent!"

"What?" The musician asked.

"This." He opened a box he was standing next to, and out came a mime.

Trent ran away screaming at the top of his lungs.

Our game of follow the leader continued, and by 'leader', I mean Chris.

"Isn't this the talent show stage?" Tyler asked. Still remember rockin' it with those yo-yos.

"Take your seats, campers and watch as Heather takes on her fear of sumo wrestlers."

Heather stepped onto the stage as did the sumo wrestler. How did that stage not collapse under the weight? Magic.

Heather was shaking as the wrestler ran at her. She crouched and the sumo was unable to adjust accordingly and tripped off the stage.

"And Heather scores the Gophers their second point!" I don't know how that was facing your fear, but I wasn't going to argue with Chris as he might take our point away.

"Look, up in the sky!" Cody said.

"It's a bird!"

"It's a plane!"

"It's Superman!"

"Actually, it's just a plane." Chris. Ever the downer.

"It's time for the next challenge, people."

"We've been rushing all over the place. Can't we stop for at least five minutes?"  
"No-can-do, Ms. C-I-T. Let's go."

He led us into the forest.

"Tell me this isn't what I think it is." Bridgette said.

"If you can spend six hours alone in the forest, you'll earn your team a point. And I think they need it, seeing how much they're sucking right now."

"Hey!" The Killer Bass yelled in unison.

We then went over to the beach. On the way we ran into a certain nerd.

"Hey guys. Sorry I blacked out for a while. What'd I miss?"

"Not much." Chris answered. "You're just in time to see Gwen get buried alive." He motioned to a Plexiglas box. "Step inside."

Gwen did so, and Chris tossed the box on the sand and began to cover it up.

"So, who wants to dig her out after five minutes?"

Cody didn't dare raise his hand, no matter how much he wanted to. Luckily, Leshawna volunteered.

Let's just hope she doesn't get distracted like Trent did last time.

"It's okay girl. You got this." Leshawna said.

"As long as we decide to dig you up."

"Not funny, Chris." Gwen said.

"Yeesh! Take a pill." I was seriously wondering what Chris's fear was right now so I could make him face it. "Here. Use these walkie-talkies to communicate."

He handed two to Leshawna, who handed one to Gwen.

"Just yell if you need me." The former said to the latter.

"Goodbye cruel world." Gwen said as sand covered up the last of her box.

"Okay, the rest of you, back to the stage." Chris said as we all groaned.

On the stage was a snake in a glass box.

DJ gulped and stepped on stage. It was quite comical to see someone so big terrified of something so small.

"Aaaaah! It blinked!" DJ said taking a few steps back.

"It means she likes you." Katie said.

"It's the smallest snake ever, DJ! Come on."

"Actually, the smallest snake ever is the Barbados Threadsnake" Harold said "which is smaller than this one. Which, by the way is a-."

"Can you just shut up already?" Chris asked, annoyed. "I want to enjoy people freaking out."

"It's so slimy, scaly, slithery-"

"That's more like it." Chris said.

"We need this point, DJ. Suck it up!" Dang.

The other members on her team shook their heads disapprovingly.

"What? We're headed back to Loserville, people!"

DJ was still on stage. He took a deep breath and picked up the snake, earning his team their first points.

The Bass cheered. I was happy for the guy for facing his fear, even if he _was _on the other team.

"See? Fear is only in the mind." Courtney said afterwards.

"Let's go check up on Gwen."

We went to the beach and saw Trent still running away terrified from the mime.

Chris pulled out his megaphone "Just talk to him, bro. And ask him to go away."

Leshawna was still next to a buried Gwen, talking to her about something through the walkie-talkie.

"Okay, then. We've got two minutes before Gwen's done." The host said, checking his watch. "Cody, you're up."

"What'd I say was my fear last night?" Cody asked me.

"Defusing a time bomb."

"… I'm screwed."

We all went to a secluded area in the forest. There were a lot of trash cans and a timed explosive surrounding them. The beeper was counting down.

"Alright Cody, this garbage bomb is going off in exactly ten minutes. Everything you need to know to defuse it is on these schematic blueprints." He held them up.

"What? No way! I can't do this!"

"Then, I suggest you find a safe place to hide, bra." He handed the blueprints to Cody. "Later dude."

"Wait. You're not gonna watch?"

"No way! That's a live bomb, dude!"

Everyone cleared the forest except for Cody and me.

"Come on Cody, you're a tech geek. You can do this."

"I've built some stuff at Robotics Club before, but never a bomb."

"You better start learning, then." I said, pointing to the blueprints. I could have helped him out, but then Chris might say that we were cheating.

The bomb continued counting down.

"I better hurry, then. You're observing, right?"

"Cody, I know you're my best friend, but even best friends have limits." I ran away from that bomb as fast as I could. "Good luck." I called out before going out of his hearing range.

I caught up with the rest of the group.

"Noah, where were you? You're up next."

Oh crap.

What did I say was my fear again?

Chris took us to the forest. There was a big hole on the ground with a cage in it.

"Behold, raptors!"

And there was a cage full of raptors. Aw man, the only reason I said raptors were my fear was because they were extinct. Or so I thought. But apparently not.

There was also another cage, except this one was empty.

I had expected Chef dressed in a raptor suit or something like that. Not actual raptors!

"Where did you get actual raptors?" I asked the host.

"I have my ways."

"Dude, aren't raptors bigger and less feathery?" Tyler asked.

"Someone's been watching too much _Jurassic Park_." I said.

"Yes. Actual raptors were-"

"No one cares Harold."

"Fine. GOSH!"

"Noah, if you stay in your empty cage for five minutes, you get a point for your team. We'll release the raptors in thirty seconds."

"What? Chris, you can't be serious. This is blasphemy, this is madness!"

"Madness?" He replied. Uh oh. "THIS IS MUSKOKA!" He pushed me down the pit and I scrambled into the cage.

_No big deal, Noah. The cage seems pretty big._

And then the cage began to shrink.

The cage kept shrinking until I barely had any room to move.

"Release the raptors!" Chris called out from above. The raptor cage opened and they all came charging towards me.

FML.

"If you give up, just press that red button on this remote." He tossed it down to me and I grabbed it quickly, nearly getting my hand scratched from a raptor claw.

I couldn't help but wonder about the others.

I hope Cody can defuse his bomb.

Leshawna would dig up Gwen, right?

Aw man, maybe _I _should have volunteered.

I hope Izzy's okay in her death ride.

The raptors snarled around me.

They were shaking the cage, their claws nearly scratching me.

I hope this cage holds up. If it breaks, I would be dead in ten seconds flat.

Maybe I should just give up.

_Push the button, Noah. You know you want to._

No, my team needs this point. If we lose, Cody's on the chopping block.

Just don't think about getting your head chewed off.

And of course, that's the next thing that I think of.

Why does five minutes seem like an hour?

At last, an alarm rang out from my cage. This scared the raptors away and an intern came running.

He raised the cage and I got out. I survived!

"Mr. Maclean and the others are at the beach." He said.

So I hurried over.

"What happened while I was away?" I asked Beth.

"Duncan conquered hith fear, but tho did you so it'th three to two."

We went to the dock to see a wet Trent in the water and a disappointed mime.

"Nicely played Trent." Chris said.

Again, I don't see how this counts as facing your fear, but whatever.

"Unfortunately. I don't think things are going quite so smoothly for our buddy Geoff."

Chris, Trent and I were having fun covering Geoff in hail.

"Can you make the cloud go lower and pelt him harder?" Trent asked.

"You are one sick dude. But yeah." The host answered.

And then Gwen came up to us. An angry Gwen.

"Leshawna forgot to dig me up. She only remembered after half an hour."

"Sorry girl, I got hungry. And then Chris sent a huge spider on me. And then I went to the restroom-" Leshawna said.

"You left your walkie-talkie here, so I could do nothing but wait for someone to dig me up."

We were interrupted when we heard an explosion.

"What was that?" Trent asked.

"If I had to guess, I'd say Cody just blew himself up." No emotion. None whatsoever.

"Shouldn't we go check on him?" I asked.

"Haha, no."

Just then, we heard a plane land.

"And Izzy lands safely, so the Screaming Gophers now lead 6-2."

A bloodcurdling scream erupted from the forest.

"Looks like Bridgette is having some trouble." Oh man was he enjoying this.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Katie, Lindsay, you can take your wigs off now."

"We did it! We made it through the whole day!" Lindsay said.

The two took their wigs off.

"I totally forgot how cute you are!" Lindsay said.

"Oh my gosh! You are too!" Katie replied.

"Alright, enough of this mushy lovey-dovey stuff. I want _fear_!" Said Chris. "Five minute break, then we'll start the final leg."

I met up with Izzy and Cody at our cabin. Cody had taken another bath.

"So, did you face your fear of raptors?" Izzy asked me.

"Yep. How about you?" I said.

"Yep. Too bad Cody couldn't face his."

"That's okay bud." I said.

"Yeah. I mean, not much people can brag about surviving an explosion. The one _I_ survived was bigger, though." Izzy said.

"Okay, campers. It's time for the final challenges!" Chris yelled through the loudspeaker.

"Let's go."

We all gathered at a fenced location.

"Alright gang, we're in the ninth inning." That was basketball, right? Or was it soccer? Hockey? "Tyler, for your challenge, you need to get into this pen for three minutes with these chickens."

"You can do it, Tyler." Bridgette said.

"Yeah. Unless of course you're chicken." Duncan added.

Tyler was just rocking back and forth outside the fence.

"I'm not sure we're getting anywhere on this one." Chris said.

"Tyler, this is the last challenge. Quit being such a girl." You're kinda putting yourself down there, Court. "You have to do this, or we'll lose."

"Actually, if you do the math, you can't possibly win." Cody said, pulling out his handy-dandy calculator. "The score is 7-3.

"Not necessarily." Chris said. "We've got one more challenge set up."

"Oooooooooooooo. A twist. Just like that M. Night. Whatshisface." Izzy said.

"It can't be me." Courtney said. "But I didn't-"

"You didn't have to." Chris said. "We're _always_ watching you and your reactions." Creepy.

"Why isn't he talking?" Cody whispered to me.

"I think he's going to insert a flashback at this moment."

"Oh."

"I knew it." Lindsay said. "Didn't I tell you guys they were eavesdropping?" Brilliant deduction Lindsay.

"Oh who cares? It's not going to make a difference.

"Let's make this interesting then. I'll give you uh… hey Cody, what's the mathematical term for 'five times as much'?"

"Quintuple?"

"I'll give you quintuple points if you can complete it."

"What? That's not fair!" Heather said. She was right. All the other challenges were only worth one point.

"I am altering the rules. Pray I don't alter them any further." Darth Maclean.

We went to our next location. There was a high dive and a tub of green jelly underneath it.

Duncan snickered. "You're afraid of jelly?"

"Shut up! Only the green kind!" The C-I-T answered. "It's like sugary jiggly snot."

"You can face your fear and dive straight into this pool of jelly, or let your team lose yet another challenge."

Courtney sighed. "This is insane. I could seriously die doing this."

"Yep. There have been many fatalities attributed to diving into a pool of jelly." I said.

"Really?" Lindsay asked me.

Courtney was climbing the ladder when Gwen spoke.

"Oh. That is just cruel. It's probably warm by now. Warm, green jelly, snotty, bouncy, ugh!"

"You're not going to make me quit!" Courtney yelled from the ladder.

"That's it. Keep climbing!" Duncan yelled.

"She's just trying to psyche you out!" Bridgette added.

Courtney reached the top of the high dive.

"Like you said, Courtney, it's okay if you can't do it!" When did she say that? All I heard was her screaming at her team the whole time.

"It is? But we'll lose." Bridgette said.

"I can't do it. I'm coming down." Courtney called from the top.

The Screaming Gophers all cheered. We would have won anyway unless Chris announced that he'd give five points to the C-I-T.

"And there you have it. The Gophers win invincibility… again!"

Finally, our evening of running all around the island had ended. I still can't believe I saw actual velociraptors. Or got that close to them.

And I hope it never happens again.

I headed back to the cabin. It was already evening.

For the chess game tonight, I decided to go a little easy on Cody. A bomb had blew up in his face, after all.

"Are you okay after getting blown up?" I asked him.

"Yeah. And Trent, good job on dealing with that mime." He said.

Trent just shrugged. "Whatever."

Cody sighed.

This made me go even easier on him.

"I won!"

"Good job."

"You threw the game, didn't you?"

'What? No I didn't."

"Yeah you did."

"Okay, I did. I'll be sure to decimate you next time." I said.

"You're on."

We went to bed.

"By the way, my _actual _worst fear is clowns." I told him.

Great. Now I'm never going to get any sleep.

* * *

So that's why Noah chose velociraptors as his fear.

Writing this story is giving me an excuse to watch Total Drama Island again. I've noticed some little things that I never saw before.

Isn't it weird how Katie and Lindsay have the same voice actor as well as the same fears?


	19. Buildup

If you're wondering why this chapter took so long, it's because time moves too fast and I do not possess a time controlling remote. If any of you possess this magical weapon, please lend it to me. Once again, time is the culprit because it moves too fast.

I have my semester exams coming up next week so there might not be any updates for a while. Again. Bummer.

To quote Noah: "Life, why do you hate me so?"

End of intro, start of chapter.

* * *

Total Drama © Fresh TV Inc. & Teletoon

* * *

_**Total Drama Redemption**_

**Day Seventeen (17)**

I barely got any sleep last night. Images of raptors and Pennywise the Clown kept entering my dreams, or rather, nightmares. And I nearly pissed my pants.

It was now 1 o'clock in the afternoon.

If there was a lazy Olympics, I'd win gold for sure.

I was a lazy S.O.B. but never had I gotten up _this _late. Even when I tried to, I couldn't. It wasn't _my _fault I couldn't get any sleep.

Okay, I was the one who attempted the challenge. If I didn't, I wouldn't be having nightmares.

Then again, if I didn't, I could also be the one going home.

And I was also the one who mentioned my fear of clowns.

So, it was pretty much my fault.

So I got up, walked over to the washroom, brushed my teeth, took a bath and wore new clothes. They were actually just clothes from last week that had now been washed and looked clean-_ish_.

The door that broke from the ninjas entering had not been fixed yet.

I had been doing this for a while now. It started from my high school days and has carried on up till now. I always used to get up, brush my teeth and take a shower. It had become a regular routine.

So I got out of the washroom and Cody noticed me. He came up to me.

"Dude, when did you wake up?"

"A few minutes ago, why?"

"Well, you missed breakfast. How the heck do you wake up so late?"

"I couldn't sleep at all last night."

"Any reason why?"

"I'd rather not talk about it."

"Well, it's a good thing it's a non-challenge day today."

Thank goodness. I didn't feel up for a challenge. Well, I _never_ didbut today less so than usual.

And by the way, Courtney was eliminated at the bonfire ceremony last night."

"Really?" So that meant that the previous four eliminations were all different than how it happened the first time around.

"And I figured out the voting."

"You did?" There has to be change once in a while.

"Yeah. I was bored waiting for you to wake up and my DS needed to charge so I decided to think up a plausible way the voting went…" He then proceeded to tell me.

Bridgette – Tyler (She wouldn't vote for her friend Courtney)

Courtney – Tyler (He was too chicken to face the chickens)

DJ - Courtney (She scared him with her yelling)

Duncan – Harold (He's a nerd)

Geoff – Courtney (She was being a hypocrite)

Harold – Tyler (Chickens are a dumb worst fear)

Katie – Courtney (Green jelly, seriously?)

Tyler – Courtney (She could have won it for the team)

Total: Courtney (4); Tyler (3); Harold (1)

Eliminated: Courtney

"And I didn't even have to ask them." He added at the end. Although I'm not sure if they would tell him even if he _did _ask them.

The people that didn't face their fears were Geoff, Courtney, Bridgette, Harold and Tyler.

Katie was the swing-vote. I guess Sadie voted for Tyler the first time around.

"Wow Cody, that's a pretty accurate presumption."

"Thanks."

I wasn't going to test my luck and ask the guys who they voted for a second time in a row.

Aw man, I had wasted fifty bucks trying to prevent Harold from cheating!

All those changes at the Voting Booth were useless.

The Confessional! I knew there was something I forgot to do yesterday! I quickly went over to the Confession Cam.

"Okay Chris, I know this confessional might be a bit late. Actually, it is _super_ late, but I just want to say that I _never_ want to have an experience like the one I went through ever again! You hear me? There were frickin Velociraptors out there! Razor sharp claws and those pointy fangs! They could slice through you like a knife cuts through butter! Some of you may be saying that I'm overdoing it, but you never really know what true fear is until you are actually in that situation. Why the hell did I say raptors were my fear? Oh yeah, BECAUSE THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE EXTINCT!" Whoa! Rage-fest over. I took some breaths and continued. "On the bright side, at least we won. I'm gonna have nightmares about this challenge for sure. Which, I'm pretty sure, is what you were aiming for, Chris."

I left the wooden box with a camcorder inside of it.

Chris most likely won't air any of that, but I didn't have anything to lose.

At least no one else would tamper with the votes now seeing as Courtney was gone. Hopefully not, anyway.

I actually thought Courtney would go home after the Phobia Factor challenge, so I was more than a bit surprised when she didn't.

The last four eliminations were all different from the first time around.

The eliminations of Justin and Owen were the most surprising to me.

I had expected Owen to get farther along in the game than merely four challenges. A _lot _further.

But why did Justin not participate in the Dodgeball challenge? He had competed the first time around, so why not now? It was a good thing he didn't, or I would be out, but I was confused as to the reason.

And I wonder how Courtney's elimination will affect how things play out down the road.

"I'm glad Courtney's gone. She just seemed so obnoxious, don't you think?" Cody snapped me out of my thoughts with his question.

"Yeah. She seemed to overconfident, especially in the last challenge." I replied.

"She's gotten lucky the whole time. The only things that saved her butt were a sexist homeschooled kid and some wicked beat-boxing. That's the only reason she even managed to make it this far." Cody said.

"At last that C-I-T can L-E-A-V-E us alone now."

"You got that right. Come on let's go eat lunch."

We headed over to the Mess Hall and saw Trent eating his food. The others had either not showed up yet or had already finished.

And I realized the opportunity that I had been given. Cody and Trent had been avoiding each other over the past couple of days ever since that Talent Show was over.

So I walked over to Trent.

"Hey man, how you doing?"

"Been better."

"I think it's time Cody and you talk."

"Huh?" Cody began to slowly walk away but I grabbed his shirt collar and pulled him back.

"And just where do you think you're going?"

"Uh… I have to pee?"

"No way. You and Trent have been avoiding each other like the plague ever since that stupid diary incident. I think it's time to get this over with. So you can go back to being friends again."

Cody sighed. "Alright."

Just then Geoff, Harold, Beth, Bridgette, Lindsay and Heather showed up.

"Let's discuss this in private." I said.

Cody and Trent nodded and we headed back to the cabins.

I had only taken a spoonful of Chef's "food". One spoonful too much.

"Give it to a seagull or something." Cody suggested.

"No way! That's animal cruelty." I threw the dish in the trash and we left.

We were about halfway to our cabins when anyone talked again.

"I need to go to the uh..."

"You're not going anywhere but the cabin, Cody."

We entered the cabin.

"Trent, you go first. I want Cody to see your side of the story." I said.

"Gwen and I. We used to be pretty close, man. I loved her with all my heart. And I thought she felt the same way about me. Until someone revealed that it wasn't true. You know Cody, instead of being mad at you, I should thank you. You revealed that Gwen doesn't have any feelings for me at all whatsoever. You think you know a person. I would have been acting like some idiot, but thanks to you, I know how she _really _feels. She keeps wanting to talk to me and apologize, but I just ignore her. I shouldn't get mad at her. It's not as if she is required to like me. Just wish she did." Trent sulked.

"But she does like you, Trent." Cody said. He realized what he just said. "She likes _you, _Trent. I've been acting like an idiot as well, always chasing around her, trying to impress her in one way or another. It just made her dislike me more and more. I've been a real creep around her. I love her just like you, but she doesn't love me back. I guess I just have to accept that."

"But if she doesn't like me or you, who does she like?" Trent asked.

I interrupted. "Duncan."

"What?" Cody asked.

"Duncan's at the door."

"What does he want?" Trent asked.

"I don't think we should let him in." Kind of agree with Cody on that one.

We opened the door, albeit reluctantly.

"Top of the afternoon to you sir. What business would a gentleman such as you come to seek from gentlemen such as ourselves?"

"Stop acting weird tech-geek and follow me." The punk answered.

"What do you need Cody for?" I asked.

But he ignored me and grabbed Cody.

Cody, what idiotic thing did you do this time?

Trent and I spent the next couple of minutes contemplating what cruel things Duncan was doing to Cody.

"Stuff him in the toilet?"

"Beat him senseless?"

"Giving him a wedgie?"

"Or maybe he's-"

The door opened before Trent could finish the sentence.

And Cody walked in. There was no blood, no broken teeth, even his shirt was intact.

"What did he do?" I asked.

"Never mind that. Now where were we?"

He paused a while. "Oh yes! Trent, you don't have to accept that Gwen doesn't like you, because she does. You are one lucky guy. If it weren't for that diary, you two would probably be dating right now. I'd give anything to be in your shoes."

"Alright, I guess you didn't steal the diary. And say Gwen does like me, how do we fix this?"

"And who actually _did_ write that note in the diary?" I asked.

"It won't matter once Gwen and Trent are back together."

"And how exactly will that happen."

"Oh I have a plan. Tomorrow, it will be like this whole incident never even happened."

"Let's just hope it's not as bad as your plan to get Gwen to fall for you."

"She's a cool gal. And it's time I settled an argument with one of my friends."

"But that's tomorrow. Now, for chess!"

* * *

Sorry for the super short chapter. I hate when it takes for frickin ever to update and even then you get a short chapter. Didn't really know what to do with this one but there were some hints of things to come, (as suggested by the chapter title) and some mysteries that will be answered in the upcoming chapters.

With regards to Courtney's elimination, I thought that would actually be what happened so I was more than a bit surprised when Tyler got the boot.

Don't give up on this story, people. I may be busy but this story is going to the end!


End file.
